i read this earlier today and i just thought this would be a nice read for car enthusiasts like you and me

ESSAY
A trophy on four wheels

By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 07:32am (Mla time) 08/12/2007

MANILA, Philippines – Why are most Filipinos crazy about their cars? Well, it’s a guy thing. Not to mention a cultural aspiration. Every other Pinoy is aspiring to become a car owner. Browse through the Net and you’ll find an incredible range of used cars being offered for as low as P20,000 (okay, so it was an owner-type jeep).

Prestige—it’s part of the game. The vehicle, no matter how humble, says: “I’ve arrived.” It means, “No, I’m not going to take public transpo anymore.”

Ah, public transport. I remember back in the elementary grades in this private school, I felt my family was “poor” because my sister and I had to join others in a car pool. Of course we also knew we were still better off than those who rode the school bus. But woe to those who came by public transportation; they were considered really poor. In retrospect, all that was nonsense considering the astronomical tuition fees we had to pay. But it also showed how deeply embedded cars are in our culture, much more, I feel, than in many other Asian countries where public transport systems cater to both rich and poor.

So we all grew up hankering for cars. Never mind that eventually you get one that’s so old it breaks down every other day. It’s still a private car. It’s status... and masculinity. Our men are obsessed with vehicles and buying one is only the beginning. It now has to be made-over, and remade, souped up and reinvented many times over to enhance one’s status.

When a Filipino buys a car, usually a used one, he just has to dress it up. Like a cellphone, the car has to be redone, repainted and “accessorized” with stickers and decals, outfitted with mag wheels, and then given the “highering” or “lowering” treatment. Highering is when you get extra large wheels to boost the car’s height while lowering is literally forcing the car lower (don’t ask me how) so it can run faster.

My basic knowledge of physics tells me that lowering makes sense aerodynamically because you run into less air resistance, and presumably run faster. But then a lowered car means the vehicle is always in danger of scraping the road. I actually saw one going over an open manhole, and promptly getting stuck in it. So in their quest for speed, drivers of lowered cars often end up crawling at turtle’s pace. It’s silly then, this lowering. And the highered cars? They remind me of guys suffering from short man syndrome and using platform shoes to compensate.

But you’ll still see signs “Specialized (sic) in highering and lowering,” with enough takers. A young friend of mine says that Filipinos try to imitate the cars on MTV, where African-Americans rap away while riding one of these “highered” and “lowered” cars. That’s supposed to be really hip.

Our cars imitate nature’s smaller beasts in trying to project themselves to be bigger, faster and more expensive than they actually are. The parallels are obvious with the highering. But there are other tricks that are employed, like Mercedes and BMW insignias suddenly appearing on an owner jeepney. The deception can be auditory as well. Feeling sleepy while driving one night, I quickly took to the side of the road when I heard a horn behind me suggesting a truck. Turned out to be a Kia.

And it isn’t just the car horns. There are cars that change their mufflers so the vehicle literally roars or sounds like a jet plane—which really matches those “wings” that many Filipino car owners love to attach to their vehicles, thinking that it somehow improves the car’s speed.

Vehicles make the poorest, most downtrodden Filipino a king. The car is his refuge, his fortress, his kingdom. I’ve mainly described the stuff done to the exteriors of vehicles; the interiors are also modified day to day, spruced up with sound equipment designed to deafen (used computer CD players seem to be the vogue), the most acrid air fresheners, faux leather seat jackets, faux fur, the usual rosaries and holy pictures to protect the kingdom, and somewhat out of sync with all the macho accoutrements, loads and loads of stuffed animals.

Can the driver still see anything with all the junk? Who says he has to see? The Pinoy driver shuts out the world—that way he sees no one and hears no one so he doesn’t have to bother about stopping for pedestrians, other drivers or traffic enforcers.

Mind you, the Filipino driver is still more courteous than many of our Southeast Asian neighbors. Next time you’re in Jakarta, ride their taxis through the freeway, bumper-to-bumper at 100 miles per hour.

But then again, the only reason our drivers seem more courteous is because we invest so much more to refurbish our cars. We want speed, but we’re worried too about getting it scratched. We lower it, again for speed, but are afraid it will run into the open manhole.

Tough men, tough life, pampered cars. Only in the Philippines.