03/02/2021
Historical Background of the Jeepney!
In 2015, I had started documenting Philippine public art and historical sites in the cities of Manila, Quezon City, San Juan, Pasig, Taguig, Mandaluyong, Makati, Parañaque, Pasay, Antipolo, San Pedro (Laguna Province), Los Baños, Baguio, Cebu, Lapu-Lapu, Sibonga, Carcar, San Fernando (Cebu Province), Naga (Cebu Province), Talisay (Cebu Province), Minglanilla, Davao, Jimenez, Ozamis, and Pagadian. In all my travels, I have also noticed another form of public art, which people tend to take for granted the talent placed into these: the jeepney. What caught my attention is the level of artistry seen on the jeepneys plying Aurora Boulevard, in Quezon City. And with the estimated 85,554 jeepneys legally registered in Metro Manila alone, there are more than a thousand of artworks that people see daily, as the jeepneys pass through Aurora Boulevard, and other routes in metropolis.
1917-2002 Harry Solomon Stonehill1965 Philippine Free Press
The Philippine jeepney started with the surplus United States of American military General Purpose vehicles, or GPs (geeps or jeeps for short), were left in the country, at the end of World War II in 1945. The former US military lieutenant, Harry Solomon Stonehill (born Harry Steinberg, 1917-2002), took advantage of his former military logistics connections to sell these to Filipinos in the black market. Stonehill used his earning from his surplus business to build seventeen businesses, including the Atlas Cement Corporation, the Republic Glass Corporation, United States To***co Corporation, the Philippine To***co Flue-Curing and Redrying Corporation, the United Housing Corporation, the Philippine Cotton Corporation, American Asiatic Oil Corporation, the Republic Estate Corporation, the Merconsel Corporation, and Far East Publishing Corporation (The Evening News), which helped jumped start the Philippine economy and industry, after the devastation of the war. These businesses, including starting the Philippine to***co industry, made Stonehill the richest and most influential man in the Philippines during the 1950s and 1960s.
However, allegations of bribery to Philippine and American government officials were leaked by a former employee, Menhart Spielman (1923-1962). Senator Jose “Pepe” Wright Diokno (1922-1987) was head of the Department of Justice and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) started the investigation against Stonehill and his partners Robert P. Brooks, John J. Brooks and Karl Beck; but President Diosdado Pangan Macapagal (1910-1997) dismissed the case and relieved Diokno from his position, while pardoning and then deporting Stonehill and sequestering all his assets. To this day, no one knows what happened to Stonehill’s assets that ran into the billions, and who murdered Spielman while under NBI protection. Decades later, Stonehill died in Spain an impoverished man, while still fighting to clear his name.
1940s Jeep, Civil War Veterans1940s Willys MA
The first official jeepneys were based on the American Willy’s MB and the Ford GPW, which were both formally called the U.S. Army Truck, 1/4 ton, 4×4, Command Reconnaissance. Enterprising Filipinos soon started changing the rear seats and extending the rear capacity, while adding a roof to protect the passengers from the harsh tropical sun and monsoon rains. Soon, Filipino entrepreneurs started opening their own jeep refurbishing and later fabrication companies.
1979 Philippine Tourist and Travel Association Absolut Manila
Presently, the companies that are still operating jeepney fabrication businesses are A. Borja Motors, Armak Motors, Arnel Motors, Belen Motors, B**a Motors, Celestial Motors, David Motors, Doctor Motors, EM Motors, Fauni Sico Motors, F. G. Motors, Francisco Motors, Hataw Motors, Hayag Motors, Hebron Motors, Lawin Motors, LGS Motors, Lippad Motors, Malagueña Motors, Marquez Motors, MD Jeepstar, Melford Motors, Milwaukee Motors, Morales Motors, Nelson Motors, Nemar Motors, Obetski Motors, Rizaleno Motors, Rogans Motors, Sanlor Motors, Santo Niño, Sarao Motors (est. 1953), Skipper Motors, Tabing Motors, and Tingloy Motors. The modern jeepney still looks much like a supercharged Williy’s MB, but is no longer using any part from these wartime relics. Instead, these jeepney fabrication businesses build their own chassis and body, while using motors and other mechanical parts from Japan. Meanwhile in the province of Cebu, Davao and Iloilo, the old jeepney style has been almost completely phased out, in favor of the refurbished Japanese cargo vans.
1928 Passenger Bus1949 Austin Bantam autocalesa
Before the introduction of the jeepney to the Philippine roads, there were many forms of public land mass transportation plying the Philippines streets. Public transport started with the horse drawn carts called kalesa and tartanilla during the Spanish colonial period (1540-1898), which would evolve to horse drawn trams called travania that followed railways across the city streets. Train systems were first introduced in 1892, and supplemented by electric trams in the city streets by the American occupation (1898-1946). By the 1910s, bus services traverse both rural and urban routes, and by the 1930s refurbished cars called the autocalesa was the forerunner of the jeepney. The autocalesa first used the DKW (Dampf-Kraft-Wagen) cars as its base, until it waas replaced by the 1934 Austin Bantam of the Bacharach Motor Company (BMC).
1945 The Battle for Manila1945 Tranvia Graveyard, Manila
At the end of World War II, the American bombings of many Philippine cities in 1945 led to destruction of many public transport systems, throughout the country. And the cheaply available jeeps from Stonehill offered many enterprising Filipinos to fill the void for public transportation. However, the jeeps proved to be too small to allow the transport of now more that four people in rear, and Filipinos started fabricating of new jeepneys from scratch. In he 1950s, the first of these jeepneys used the surplus diesel engines from Perkins, Peugeot, and Mercedes-Benz vehicles. But in the late 1960s and and 1970s, jeepney makers started using engines from Fuso, Isuzu and Toyota; especially from the Toyota Toyopet RK 1¼ ton truck and Isuzu UNICAB. These larger engines allowed jeepney manufacturers to extend the capacity of the vehicle to twenty passengers at the rear.
1953 Sarao Jeepney 1950s Jeepney 1956 Jeepney
Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary1949 Jeepneys in Quiapo
The tendency to decorate the public transport vehicles never started with the jeepney, as this was already started with the Spanish era kalesa and tartanilla, and carried on with the autocalesa of the 1930s and 1940s. With the introduction of the jeepney and the readily available chrome technologies in the 1950s, jeepney art moved from colorful to flashy. This love with chromed decorations, matched with brightly painted colored patterns, flags and buntings, continued to the 1960s and 1970s. Jeepney manufactures would use these chromed decorations to advertise their companies, such as Sarao made jeeps would have horses on the hood and roof, while Atendido jeeps would have an Aérospatiale Concorde plane on the hood, and Morales jeeps sported a boomerang. Some jeepneys would feature hand-painted artworks on their sides, but these were not common place.
Louis Vuitton of the Road
Our Lady of Beer PowerThe Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Dirty Fu**in' Teenagers
The later 1980s and 1990s, jeepney art began to decline with the shifting economy and rising prices of chromed decorations. Some of the newer jeepneys settled for simple solid color schemes, with very little decoration. However by the mid-1990s, a new style of jeepney art appeared with cheap and readily available weatherproof sticker sheets coming to the market. These sticker sheets of different colors allowed jeepney designers to create a large array of images on the sides and the hoods of the jeepneys. Jeepney art themes ranged from colorful patterns, to the flashy lettering styles copied for street graffiti, to pictures of women, animals, cartoon characters, race cars, and religious figures. The only problem with the sticker art was the inability to create depth and shadow with the stickers and the limitation of colors available, especially for rendering skin tones with yellow orange as the default color.
Deadpool Our Lady of the Magdalo Cyber Army
By the early 2000s, jeepney art took a big leap with the flooding of cheap automotive acrylic paint spray cans into the market. This not only created a renaissance in Philippine street art and tagging, but also in jeepney art. Street artists soon found a new medium to express themselves and earn a living by painting on jeepneys. The internet also brought easily access to reference materials such as pictures of celebrities, fantasy art, and cartoon characters. These new “airbrushed” artworks will be the subject of my next series of articles, especially in relation to religious art.
1975 A Sarao Jeepney, photograph by Italian actress, Luigina ‘Gina’ Lollobrigida (born 1927)
The Sarao Jeep Shop in 1956
2017 Jeepney by Marius Janusonis
2003 Project M201 In God We Trust by Alfredo Juan Aquilizan
