Pedaling To Live

by Fr Oliver McCrossan

More than 3,000 pedicab drivers in Ozamiz City endure grueling work and long hours to support their families. Here are two of their stories. Columban Father Oliver McCrossan came to thePhilippines from Ireland in 1976.

Josefina pedals passengers like these through Ozamiz streets on his three-wheeled pedicap called a sika-sikad

Josefino: Overcoming a Disability

I met Josefino as he stopped to pick up a passenger. He was dripping head to foot from the heavy rain and looked miserable. Josefino is just one of more than 3,000 sikad-sikad drivers in Ozamiz. These three-wheeled pedicabs are the city’s main means of public transportation. Sikad-sikad drivers all come from the poorest barrios of Ozamiz City, and almost all are forced into this work because there just aren’t any other jobs available.

One positive side of this is that Ozamiz has less pollution from traffic fumes and noise than other cities in the Philippines. The sikad-sikads provide jobs and the local industry that manufactures and repairs pedicabs provides work for many others.

Josefino Baylo was born in 1965. His mother told me that when Josefino was very young, a local doctor gave him an overdose of medicine that left him paralyzed. He recovered somewhat but now walks with a limp. He didn’t finish high school and, as the eldest in his family, was forced to leave school and work to support the family. He lived by the seashore, diving for crabs and selling them at the local market.

But this didn’t provide enough income for his family. So in 2002, and in spite of his severe handicap, he decided to drive a sikad-sikad. Josefino and his wife, Helen, have three young children. Helen took in laundry for washing to earn money, but got sick. She says, ‘My back was painful, and I developed a stomach ulcer, so I had to stop.’

Josefino begins his day at 6 each morning and ends at 8pm. He brings students to school and shoppers to the market. An average fare is five pesos and he can carry only two passengers at a time. ‘Because of my disability, I am slower than the other pedicabs so I get fewer fares.’

Josefino doesn’t own his pedicab; he rents it for 60 pesos each day. After paying his rental fee every night, he takes home an average of 70 to 80 pesos. This small amount has to take care of his family’s daily needs - a daily struggle just to survive.

‘When I come home after a day out in the sun and rain, I have pains all over my body,’ Josefino told me.

In spite of his disability, Josefino struggles on bravely to care for his family. His neighbors speak of his courage and hard work. They help as best they can, but most of them are poor as well.

Josefino joined an organization that campaigns for the rights of person with disabilities in Ozamiz. The organization only began a few years ago and is slowly making progress with the support of the Columban Sisters. Josefino applied for a loan of P5,000.00 from the organization to set up a little store in his barrio.

After our visit, Josefino pedaled off into the rain, I have promised to visit him and his family. ‘I want you to visit and say a prayer for the success of my shop,’ he says with excitement.

Ermon: The ‘Bicycle Man’

Ninyo is one of Ermon and Carmen's six children. He cannot hear or speak, but he has graduated from elementary and now attends high school

On my first visit to Ermon’s home, I felt sick from the awful stench coming from the stagnant water of the nearby canal. Like many others here in Ozamiz, his house is built next to a health hazard, ‘In 1989,’ he told me, ‘our house was destroyed by fire, we lost all we had, and were forced to move here by the canal. We don’t notice the smell anymore.’

Ermon Lumanta was born in 1948 in Bohol. ‘Life was tough growing up,’ he said. ‘My father was a heavy gambler, and we were forced to sell our coconut plantation to pay off his gambling debts. My mother could take no more, so she left my father taking with her my brother, sister and me. I was only 12 at the time.’

When Ermon was 15 his cousin took him to Ozamiz where he got a start in a bicycle repair shop. Soon, they were calling him the ‘bicycle man.’ Ermon showed me his old and battered sikad-sikad. ‘I bought this second-hand for P1,000.00 15 years ago and it’s still in working order!’ He has been pushing the pedicab for years around the streets of Ozamiz to supplement his income.

‘It’s a hard life,’ Ermon explains, ‘because we’re out in all kinds of weather everyday, just to earn a little to care for our families.’ Ermon’s average daily income comes to about P100.

In 1973 Ermon married Carmen. The couple has six children: two girls and four boys. In 1985, Ninyo weighed only four pounds at birth. Carmen says, ‘I was worried. He was one-year-old, yet wasn’t speaking. We took him to the doctor who told us that due to a birth defect, he would never be able to hear or speak. It was very difficult for us to accept.’

But good news came to the Lumanta family. Columban Sister Mary McManus from the USA had just started a school for the Deaf in Ozamiz and Ninyo started attending. Ermon remembers the family’s gratitude to Sister Mary and her Community of Hope School.

Ninyo graduated from elementary school and is now attending high school. He is adept at Sign Language and hopes someday to teach. He is now 20, a young man full of confidence.

Both his parents are involved in the activities of the Community of Hope School. Ermon says, ‘Carmen is much better at “signing” than me, because she has taken a course in Sign Language. We have seen how it helps the hearing-impaired and other children with special needs. We are proud to be a part of this work.’

Like his sikad-sikad, Ermon with Carmen and Ninyo, has suffered ‘the storms of life,’ but have never been overcome by them. Like Josefino and Ermon there are over three thousand sikad-sikad drivers in Ozamiz City. They depend on what they can earn each day to take care of their families. They provide a valuable service for the people going about their daily business. Like Josefine, the vast majority of the drivers rent their pedicab on a daily basis. The People's Cooperative Bank in Ozamiz has started a small project to assist the sikad-sikad drivers and their families to own their own vehicle. Hopefully it will lead to a better life for some of them.

Salamat sa Columban Mission