Jeepney Art 21

It's only a matter of time before the uniquely Filipino art of jeepney painting is gone forever.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/life/01/28/19/pinoy-jeepney-artists-stalked-by-extinction

"This is an act of treachery against fellow Filipinos," said de la Cruz. "This is a uniquely Filipino product. We were born with it." 

When he began 45 years ago, there were hundreds of artists giving the vehicles their famously boisterous paint jobs. Now there are estimated to be fewer than a dozen left.  

He has seen orders decline from a high of up to 80 a month in the 1980s to just one or two now. 

"It's one of the most genuine forms of modern folk art that we have," Bernie Sim, a Manila-based graphic designer and co-author of a 2014 book on jeepney art, told AFP. 

But the vehicles, which were first made from leftover US jeeps after World War II, have been on borrowed time for years. 

Jeepneys are highly polluting, and the Philippines is desperate to improve air quality in its traffic-clogged cities. Their drivers are also notorious for ignoring traffic rules, and the vehicles have few safety features.  

On top of that, Manila ushered in internet-based ride-sharing services in 2014, and three years later President Rodrigo Duterte said the jeepney must evolve or disappear. 

"They have all but stopped making jeepneys," said 52-year-old jeepney artist Vic Capuno, based in San Pablo town south of Manila. 

De la Cruz worked on nine in the last year. He's the only painter left at Manila's Sarao Motors, once the country's biggest producer. Two of his siblings were also jeepney artists, but they died from diseases he believes were caused by years inhaling fumes from the paint.  

Yet he is still passionate about the vehicle's importance in Philippine history.  

"When the jeepney disappears a piece of Filipino culture will also die," de la Cruz warned. 

He conceded he could have a decent life without the jeepneys, but was heartbroken by the government's decision.  

"I would like to appeal to the authorities not to outlaw it," de la Cruz said. "At times I cry quietly when I think about what is happening."

Outlawing jeepnies? Even if they do disappear we will always have these pictures to remind us of how we used to be.