Life in the Philippines - Taxi’s
A Taxi is the most common form of transportation I use here second only to my own two feet. The taxi’s themselves as very much as I expected them to be … 4 door sedan with air conditioning. Typically the driver will only turn on the AC when he has a passenger … I suppose this saves money when there is no passenger.
So a few rules on Taxi’s:
1. Stand on the roadside and put up your arm to flag down a taxi - pretty much the same as back home.
2. Don’t expect an empty Taxi to stop for you, some drivers don’t seem to like to deal with non-Philippino’s and just keep going as thought they don’t see you.
3. When a Taxi does stop, open the door and tell him where you want to go BEFORE you get in. Talk slowly and clearly, say the city and spot. If the driver doesn’t know it and you can’t explain it so that he seems to know where to go … it will likely not be a good cab to take. Manila is HUGE and if you can’t give street by street directions you really have no way of knowing where you will end up.
4. When you get in make sure the cabby actually turns on the meter. It has red numbers and is easily visible. Sometimes the driver will try to get away with not turning it on, and at the end of the ride will ask for some outrageous amount, usually at least double what it should be. You don’t want to get into an argument over the fare because most cabbies are reputed to carry something for protection and for all you know may have a gun.
Now don’t get me wrong here, the Philippino people are fabuous and very friendly, but it is a third world. Any white person is seen as ‘rich’ by default and I think that many of the poorer people see us as an opportunity to get a small amount of extra money from us. To them this seemingly small amount can be quite a lot.
I took cab yesterday and I swear to god he was the worst so far. I actually had to put my elbows on my knees because the cab seemed to be in a constant state of accellerate-brake cycles … almost to the point of feeling a bit like whiplash. The corker to the whole thing was this was at about midnight and I could see NO cars ahead of us … and he still drove the same. You’d almost swear the engine was constantly stalling and then surging back to life .. lol
He got pulled over by the first cop I’ve seem for an illegal left turn. It took several minutes to sort out and he had to pay a fine on the spot … all while the meter was running of course. I only cost me a few extra pesos … about 10 of 15 cents really so I wasn’t too worried.
Right now you have to pay an extra 10 pesos over the fare … I believe a rate increase came into effect but is not yet implimented. My fare was 100 pesos and I gave the driver 110 … he was hinting the whole time about the fine he just paid but didn’t seem to have the nerve to actually come right out and ask me to pay the police fine as well … but he certainly hinted at it !!!
All in all, if your taxi driver seems to drive smoothly and way too close to the other vehicles in your opinion … then you have a good cabbie.