Drivers say strict compliance with the speed limit is “not a slowdown, it’s just obeying the law, very, very closely”

MANDALUYONG — A group of traditional jeepney drivers opposed to the ongoing public utility vehicle modernization program has adopted a new protest strategy that transport officials privately admit is maddeningly difficult to penalize: driving at exactly, precisely, unimpeachably the legal speed limit, the entire length of EDSA, in formation.

“Nobody can write us a ticket for following the law,” said driver coalition spokesperson Rudy Panganiban, standing beside his jeepney during a break in what organizers are calling the “Obedience Convoy.” “We are not blocking traffic. We are not stopping. We are driving the exact speed the sign says. If that speed happens to be slower than everyone else wants to go, that is not our problem. That is a math problem for the people behind us.”

A Protest With Plausible Deniability

The tactic has reportedly added significant delay to the morning and evening rush along the affected stretch, with commuters reporting trips that normally take forty minutes stretching well past an hour. Traffic enforcement officials say they’ve fielded complaints but have struggled to cite any legal basis for intervention, given that the drivers are, by any technical reading, in full compliance with posted limits for the first time in most passengers’ memory.

“It’s almost impressive,” admitted one traffic enforcer stationed near Ortigas, who declined to give his name given the sensitivity of publicly praising a protest he’s technically supposed to be discouraging. “In eight years directing traffic on this road, I have never seen this many jeepneys go the actual speed limit at the actual same time. If I’m honest, some part of me respects the commitment.”

The Underlying Dispute

The protest is the latest flashpoint in the long-running standoff over the government’s PUV modernization program, which requires operators to consolidate into cooperatives and replace older jeepney units with newer, compliant vehicles — a shift many independent drivers say they cannot afford without displacing themselves from an industry some have worked in for decades. Panganiban says the slow-driving campaign is meant to be a visible, undeniable, but strictly legal reminder of how many drivers remain on the road, and how disruptive their absence would be if the transition forces them out entirely.

“We are showing the government what EDSA looks like with all of us still here, just going a little slower,” he said. “Imagine what it looks like with half of us gone entirely. This is a preview, not a punishment.”

Commuters, Caught in the Middle

Passengers, for their part, offer mixed reviews. Office worker Len Ramirez, stuck in the resulting slowdown on her commute home, said she sympathized with the drivers’ underlying grievance while also, quietly, hoping the demonstration wouldn’t become a regular occurrence. “I respect the strategy,” she said. “It’s very smart. It’s also making me late for dinner, which I don’t respect nearly as much.” Panganiban says the coalition has no immediate plans to end the convoy, noting that as long as the speed limit exists, “we intend to follow it, very, very carefully, for as long as it takes.”

Legal Experts Weigh In, Reluctantly

Transport lawyers contacted about the tactic’s legality say the drivers appear to have found a genuine, if unusual, gap in enforcement authority. “You cannot cite someone for driving the speed limit,” said one transport law specialist, sounding almost impressed despite himself. “It’s a completely novel use of compliance as leverage. I’ve seen slowdowns before, I’ve seen sickouts, I’ve seen strikes. I have never seen a protest built entirely on aggressive adherence to posted signage.” The specialist noted that similar “obedience” tactics have occasionally surfaced in labor disputes elsewhere in the world, though rarely with quite this level of visible coordination across an entire major thoroughfare.

The Government’s Position

Transport officials overseeing the modernization program maintain that the underlying policy remains necessary for safety and emissions standards, and say they remain open to dialogue with driver groups over financing support and transition timelines. A spokesperson acknowledged the convoy’s cleverness while declining to characterize it as legitimate advocacy, calling it instead “a disruption dressed up as compliance,” a phrase Panganiban says he’s already had printed on a small sign taped inside his jeepney’s windshield, directly below the fare chart, as what he describes as “basically a badge of honor.”

Passengers Adapt, Reluctantly

Commuters caught in the middle have started developing their own coping strategies. Several ride-hailing regulars report building extra buffer time into any trip scheduled during the convoy’s rumored operating hours, while a handful of office workers have simply begun leaving earlier, treating the slowdown as a fixed, predictable feature of the week rather than a surprise. “You can’t out-argue a jeepney driving the speed limit,” said commuter Len Ramirez. “You can only out-plan him. So now I leave twenty minutes earlier on convoy days. It’s annoying, but I respect that they found a loophole nobody can touch.”

Panganiban says the coalition views the disruption as proportionate to the stakes. “Nobody wants to inconvenience their own neighbors,” he said. “But nobody built us a transition plan we can actually afford either. Until that changes, we’ll keep obeying the speed limit, very publicly, for as long as we have to.”

SOURCE: https://prat.UK/