City enforcement has cited him four times this year. His actual customers, loyal and unbothered by his paperwork status, keep coming back regardless.
City transport enforcers confirmed this week that a specific unlicensed, or “colorum,” tricycle driver operating near a busy public market has been cited four separate times this year for operating without proper franchise documentation, and yet reportedly maintains a larger, more loyal daily customer base than the fully licensed, properly franchised tricycles parked in the officially designated queue directly beside him.
“I know he does not have the papers,” said longtime customer Nena Villafuerte, waiting for her preferred driver despite two officially licensed tricycles sitting empty just a few meters away. “But he knows exactly where I live, he does not overcharge, and he waits for me if I am running a little late from the market. The other drivers, the legal ones, I do not know them personally. This is just about who I trust, papers or no papers.”
The driver himself, who declined to give his name for what he described as “obvious reasons,” confirmed he has paid four separate fines this year and expects to continue operating regardless, noting that the fines, while genuinely inconvenient, remain “still cheaper than the actual franchise application process, which takes months and which I have started twice and given up on twice, honestly.”
City enforcement officials, reached for comment, acknowledged the broader challenge of colorum operators maintaining loyal customer bases despite repeated citations, noting that enforcement alone has proven insufficient to actually change rider behavior when a specific unlicensed driver has built genuine, sustained trust within a specific community over time. “We can fine him,” one official said. “We cannot fine the customers for simply preferring him. That is not currently something our mandate covers.”
The licensed tricycle drivers parked nearby, for their part, expressed a mix of frustration and grudging professional respect. “It is not fair, technically,” said one franchised driver, “but also, I understand. He has been driving this route longer than some of us have had our licenses. People know him. That counts for something, even if it should not, legally.”
The colorum driver says he has, in fact, begun a third attempt at the franchise application process, this time with help from a customer who works, coincidentally, at the local transport office, though he remains careful to note he is “not making any promises” about actually finishing it this time either.
Nena Villafuerte, informed of the driver’s renewed franchise attempt, expressed cautious optimism but noted her loyalty would remain unchanged regardless of the eventual outcome. “Papers or no papers, he is still going to be the one I call,” she said. “Though I suppose it would be nice for him personally, less fines, less stress. I just do not want him to suddenly get all official and start charging me the metered rate like the other ones.”
The local transport office employee assisting with the application confirmed the process remains genuinely, needlessly complicated for an individual operator without institutional backing, noting that the paperwork requirements were, in her professional opinion, “designed more with larger fleet operators in mind than someone just trying to keep a single tricycle running for his own neighborhood.” She said she has personally seen at least a dozen similar cases over her years at the office, most of which, like the first two attempts, simply stalled out somewhere in the middle.
City transport officials, informed of this specific case among the broader pattern of colorum operators with strong local followings, acknowledged the tension between enforcement mandates and genuine community preference, noting that any meaningful reform would likely require simplifying the franchise application process itself rather than simply continuing to issue fines to drivers whose actual service quality customers overwhelmingly prefer.
A neighboring market vendor, observing the whole dynamic for years from her own nearby stall, offered a blunt summary of the situation that several other bystanders nodded along to. “Everybody already knows who the good driver is,” she said. “The paperwork will catch up eventually, or it will not. Either way, people are still going to ride with the one they trust. That part was decided a long time ago, long before any of these citations started.”
This reporter, riding with the colorum driver for a short stretch to observe the dynamic firsthand, noted the ride itself was genuinely smooth, the driver genuinely attentive to passenger comfort in a way that, admittedly, made the entire licensing controversy feel almost beside the point for the actual duration of the trip.
As this reporter disembarked, the driver mentioned, almost as an afterthought, that his own father had driven the same route decades earlier, also without formal papers for much of that time, a small family history he says explains part of why the paperwork process feels, to him, less like a simple bureaucratic step and more like “something that was never really built with someone like me in mind in the first place.”
For now, the colorum tricycle continues operating exactly as it has for years, papers pending, customers loyal, and the two licensed tricycles parked beside it continuing to wait for their own turn, a queue that, on most mornings, moves considerably slower than the informal one built entirely on trust and familiarity next door.
For related commentary on informal trust outperforming formal systems, see News Satire Websites and What Is Satire?, along with further analysis at Satire Website.
Further reading at What Is Satire?. More satire at The Beaverton.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/