Why "habal-habal" exists?

I have all the reasons to believe that the term habal-habal was our own (meaning Visayan) coinage. If we were to understand its etymology, we would realize it to be a Cebuano word with a rather indecent application such that the more refined among us would not say it publicly without a degree of embarrassment.

Habal-habal, by the way, is the name we ascribe to that mode of transportation using a motorcycle. We have come to use it more to describe the way passengers are transported to their destination than anything immoral. In that harmless context, a motorcyclist takes two or three back riders as passengers as he usually services the hinterland.

As a form of public conveyance, the habal-habal is an aberration. It exists as a matter of fact but its operation is, unfortunately, not covered by any national legislation. It can only surmise this situation being the result of the fact that this kind of transportation is of recent development. When our land transportation code took effect sometime in 1964, our lawmakers never imagined that a vehicle with two wheels, like a motorcycle, would be a safe way to travel.

Indeed, statistics show that there is a daily occurrence of accidents, many of them fatal, involving motorcycles. To drive this point home, just turn your television set to any morning news programming and you will not miss a report of bloody vehicular incidents figuring motorcycles.

There are many disadvantages in using habal-habal, the most obvious being that it is prone to accident. A motorcycle driven even at a slow speed stands the chance of careening when it hits loose pebbles. It is particularly difficult to control a motorcycle when it has a heavy load like when more than two persons are riding on it.

When accidents do happen, passengers of habal-habal are immediately physically exposed. People taking a bus are a lot far removed from exposing their bodies to impact. These account for the higher number of bloody, meaning deadly, accidents.

Did you know that the fares demanded by habal-habal drivers are higher than those imposed by operators of other means of public transport? Their common rationale is the poor condition of the road! Ironically, they also cite the dangers of the kind of travel they provide to justify their higher fares!

And, woe to the habal-habal passengers, for they do not have the kind of protection enjoyed by those riding in other public conveyance like a bus. To cite an example, I do not know of any insurance company that covers motorcycle accidents. So, a habal-habal passenger does not have insurance coverage for taking such a conveyance, and there is yet no law that compels the operator to obtain that protection for its customers.

But, despite the risks involved in riding habal-habal, why does this form of transportation exist? Why are there many motorcycles operating as for hire vehicles? It is demand driven, for sure. People need to travel. Habal-habal thrives in areas that are less accessible to better means of public transportation. More often than not, when the roads are either inexistent or bad, the habal-habal goes there. Not the bus. Neither the jeep.

In effect, the habal-habal exists because, in truth, government fails or realistically, because, our leaders do not understand the problem. Where government is unable to provide good roads, no operators of such safe forms of travel like bus want to field their units. This gives the opportunity to habal-habal operators, never minding the dangers of this mode of travel, to do their own bidding. The next time a fatal accident happens, we know this is just an effect, in much the same way that we know what the cause is.

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Email: avenpiramide@yahoo.com.ph