Quote Originally Posted by niky View Post
Oldie ka pala, kitsons? UP ba (UPD boy here...)?

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The problem with the tricycle is the economics of it... whether you can earn enough from running a daily route to cover the cost of fuel, maintenance and monthly amortization. And given that, in some cases, there isn't a big enough customer base to support a tricycle service, while in others, service areas are oversaturated, we've got a huge problem... too many tricycles, too few passengers.

One of the ways to get around this is to figure out ways to open up new markets, or to divert all that economic activity in some other direction, to ease up competition and make the lines more profitable. Government intervention is necessary in order to limit franchises to what each route will hold.

Another way is to find an alternative that either costs less, or costs less to run. On the first criteria... well... there really isn't anything cheaper than a tricycle... except maybe a scooter-based tricycle... with a more efficient and smaller engine and a cheaper entry price... on the second criteria... we have the choice of electric (with its relatively high entry costs), LPG (entry cost still high, but adaptable to existing vehicle and refueling infrastructure) and diesel or biodiesel (though we lack a source of diesel engines in the proper size).

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The problem, I feel, is not that people don't want to improve their lot in life (though there is an attitude of that amongst metro slum dwellers who have come to rely on relatives and friends for support, many provincial and even urban poor do work hard to maintain their lot in life), but that economic and educational opportunities are scarce. You can teach people to drive, but you can't give them all jeepneys/trikes. You can teach them to be mechanics, or seamstresses or weavers, but we have lots of those, already, also. What's needed, really, is a targeted livelihood program that can identify unserved needs in the community and train exactly enough people in each community to fill those needs.

I believe there are programs like that in place, actually... and in our school system, we have participated in a few of these programs... but it's like spitting into a typhoon... with the enormous shortfalls of our educational sector, which can barely provide even basic education to our people (I spent a year teaching in a public school... it was pretty depressing... and this was a metro school, to boot, with better funding than many provincial schools), it can sometimes feel hopeless.

In a way you are right a big majority do not want to improve their lot in life.

Studies have shown that too much of a majority of Filipinos have lost hope even in hope in themselves that made such fatalistic non-progressive mentality.

Having been a public school teacher has show you the situation in which why these guys cannot get out of the cyclical pverty they are shackled in by our societal system.

There is way though to be able to economically empower the vast majority of of our Filipino population that presently are impoverished.

As mentioned about having more than one way to skin a cat and that subsidiarity can be an alternative, advocating for subsidiarity among the people may be key to a solution to address our three major problems in Philippine Society: poverty, corruption and ecological degradation.

This guys know what their common needs are and focusing on this felt need, they can be helped to consolidate their meager resources and utilize them towards a feasible economize activity.

One of the reason of my involvement with our private forum here is that these feasible economic activities would be in need of affordable modes of transport for people and goods.

As per Architect's vision even the overall economic activities involved in coming up with our own vehicles with after sales service also benefiting the small auto repair shops, the outlook seems holistic enough to be feasible.