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Encounters from the Backseat

My encounters with taxicab drivers are one of the ways by which I encounter the
Other. Although admittedly superficial in depth and in danger of reducing the alterity of taxi
drivers to an object of knowledge for consumption, I have personally observed that
throughout time and increased exposure to taxicab rides, it becomes possible to breakdown
the veil of mutual anonymity, establish a temporary relation, and share the narratives between
the I and the Other; a relation facilitating taxicabs as a potential limited discursive space.
Riding a taxicab is probably one of the most convenient ways for someone to go
about a metropolis without an extensive, intuitive railway system such as Metro Manila.
Particularly for middle class individuals who do not own private transportation, who are
willing to spend, and want a comfortable ride, taxicab fare is a reasonable price to pay going
from Katipunan Avenue to Rockwell. For some, without private transportation, the only way
to go to Eastwood Mall from Katipunan is to take a taxicab. I am one of its patrons.
I usually make it a point to talk to taxi drivers. First, I find the silence between me and
the taxi driver deafening. Second, I surprisingly learn a lot from them. Third, continuous
conversations with different taxi drivers have admittedly made me interested about their
stories. One minor incident led me to talk to them more frequently than before.
It was December 2011. After procuring some documents for my Ateneo School of
Government on-the-job training from a heavy equipment shop near the infamous Pegasus
KTV centre, I wanted to return to the campus before the end of lunch break. I took a cab. The
one I got had a subtle, awful stench. The driver was an old, scruffy-looking male. I got in
regardless. When we were already on the highway, I noticed the taxi was speeding up and
moving steadily to the left despite the fact that there was an incoming truck behind us. At
first, I thought it was not my place to question, but before I could convince myself, I observed
that the taxi driver was asleep. I hurriedly said in a loud voice, Kuya! He woke up, turned

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quickly to the right, the truck rushed pass us honking, and I said in the most casual way I
could Nakapaghatid na po ba kayo sa Ateneo dati? I feigned the normality of the events
that just transpired before me as I sat helplessly at the backseat of that taxicab. He
reciprocated my gesture. And whenever I stopped talking to him, after a minute or two, he
would fall asleep. I arrived at my destination safe. I only hope he arrived home safe too.
It was easy to be shocked or angry. But it was easier for me to joke about it and relate
the experience to other people and to other taxi drivers. Interestingly, taxi drivers would point
out that my experience is just one of many and it has something to do with the system. First,
every day, taxi drivers have to earn at least PhP 2,500.00 a day. They call it, the boundary.
Otherwise, a full gas tank which may cost PhP 1,000 and the PhP 1,500 they have to pay the
company that owns the taxicab would easily sink them into debt. Second, a large number of
taxi drivers work every other day, 24 hours each day. For instance, they work the whole 24
hours of Monday, then rest, sleep, spend time with the family on Tuesday, only to work for
another 24 hours straight on Wednesday, and so on. I have encountered some people who
have done it from only few weeks to almost 30 years, and counting. Nakakapagod. Aantukin
ka talaga. Ayos lang, nasanay na din. One can only imagine the effect on the body.
It was less difficult to be angry; easier to understand. It was now more natural to ask
the question, bakit ganun? It was a rhetorical question. Wale eh. No choice. The taxi drivers
particularly for them who did not have the opportunity to finish high school or college took
it as an unfortunate working condition of the job, just like any other job with risks. I found
myself asking who these people I was talking to were. Papunta po ako ng Antipolo.
Nakapaghatid na po ba kayo dun? Taga san po sila? Kalahating Tagalog po ako. Kayo po?
Ano pong kurso ng panganay ninyo?58 na po kayo, tatlong beses nakayo na hold-up tay?!
Sometimes taxi drivers would tell me that I would be surprised with how many taxi
drivers send their children to college; even if driving a taxicab was difficult and even deadly.

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They do admit though that driving a cab is less stressful and much healthier than driving a
jeepney and also better paying than company truck work in the provinces. Another was a
political science major graduate, the same undergraduate degree I am working for, albeit I at
a prestigious university. He worked for a research team under a Congressman in Compostela
Valley, at dahil sa pulitika at pride, has now been working for a year as a taxi driver.
I learned to look at the face of my taxi drivers. They can smile at you, laugh with or
at you, crack jokes, or disclose personal regrets. And these faces are different from one
another. These are individuals. There are commonalities among them; they come from the
province, no tertiary education usually, and they may or may not have kids (and not always
more than three as is popularly believed). But there are distinctions as well: some prefer to
sleep off parts of the 24 hour work time, some have worked abroad as electricians, some have
transportation arrangements with women who frequents parties from a certain university, and
some prefer to try their luck in NAIA for big tips from foreigners, despite finding it difficult
to speak in English or whatever language it was the foreigners spoke.
I do not think that I am the only one who talks to the taxi drivers they encounter. After
all, as Randy David in his article The ethics of face, took note, Levinas argued that It is
difficult to be silent in someones presence.1 People probably also feel the same way as I do
when I am in that situation with a stranger. But I cannot help but wonder how it is from the
perspective of the taxi drivers. It may be true that some passenger from Ateneo displays an
unusual degree of interest in their lives, potentially consistent, contrary, or very different from
their expectations, but does it radically change anything? Does it alter anything at all?
These are encounters. Although, these two people share stories as a means to counter the
tension of mutual anonymity or to pass the time amidst a horrible traffic jam, it is possible for
these two citizens of the metropolis never to see each others faces again. They may never
1 Randy David, The ethics of a face, in Philippine Daily Inquirer, December 3, 1995.

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initially examine one another. They may never share laughter together. And as much as I
hoped before that I, in my own little way, changed the dynamics between the passenger and
the taxi driver, fundamentally the relation between strangers (or the lack thereof), the level of
my engagement with these taxi drivers is admittedly superficial. Sometimes, I am concerned I
fall to the temptation and the trap of considering and treating people as objects of knowledge
and consumption. Sometimes, I find myself wondering if I appear suspiciously inquisitive.
However, Levinas argues in Ethics and Infinity that with the suddenness of the
encounter with the face of the Other is discourse. In this regard, Levinas distinguishes
between the saying and the said. Although the latter as content is important, the former or
the saying the manner in which words or messages are communicated has an entire
repertoire of meanings and altogether much more valuable.2 In other words, the fact that I
have accumulated knowledge on various taxi drivers, observed their respective quirks, and
their common attributes, although I have understood much about the said, the question
remains on whether or not I have gained enough intuition and sensitivity of the saying.
Basically, the question of how I relate to people, regardless of their social class or affiliation.
Undoubtedly, I have a certain mode of saying; it goes the same way for other people, and this
is largely affected by the cumulative effect of our travels on our personage. In a sense,
although not all can be seen or revealed, ones bearing has a distinct mark in how one
conducts himself in an airport, a caf, or the streets. Successive encounter with taxi drivers
made me more attuned to the experiences and sensibilities of the taxi driver or a particular
group of them perhaps , but it neither makes me any more qualified to be representative of
taxi drivers nor transforms me into a veteran taxi driver who knows the nooks and crannies of
the city like the back of his hand. In the relation between my person and a taxi driver I have
never met before, a familiar yet distinctly different relationship is temporarily conducted.
2 Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2011)

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On the question of how I relate to other people, I think another question comes into
the picture: the question on personal conduct or ethics in the encounter with the other Others.
After all, the I and the Other are in a world full of realities other than themselves; they do not
exist in a vacuum. In Mr. Calasanz commentaries 3, the most incomplete of Levinas work
deal with the question of the other Others, systems, and structures; the heart of which is the
importance of the state in the entire picture. Since, the material conditions, political culture,
the institutional arrangements, and social relations that prevail in particular societies largely
constrain the kind of economic, cultural, social, and political life people can have in the first
place, it therefore becomes very critical to talk about this last relationship. Understandably, it
is also the most difficult to comprehend fully, in terms of its depth and its scope.
Earlier, I gave three very basic reasons why I initially made it a point to talk to taxi
drivers. There is another simple reason: I have come to respect the way taxi drivers think and
I appreciate them in their saying and their said messages for they do it differently from me.
The difference is not a point of contention; it is a point of relation. I have my own
worldviews. I may boast that I have been to various countries or that I have read Victor Hugo,
but, I recognize the finitude of my own worldview, experiences, and being. There are
essential things in life that are only visible through the eyes of the taxicab driver. Our
differences, in the moment that we dialogue, convert the humble taxicab to a mobile pocket
of limited discursivity allowing the (re)negotiation our supposed natural differences. And
through the jokes, through the stories of despair or of love, I think there are opportunities
wherein I am moved beyond the backseat and invited to look at the face of the taxi driver, and
he at my face, and we discover that despite all the layers of categories we used to identify
ourselves and each other, we both are equal in many respects; we both are called to be and are
human beings. The challenge lies in going beyond the mutual gaze of our faces.
3 Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz, Ethics with a Human Face, in Commentaries on Moral Philosophy,
edited by Rainer R.A. Ibana and Angelli F. Tugado. Pasig City: CHED, 1998, pp. 245-252

MIGUEL LUIGI L. CALAYAG