More than 3,000 pedicab drivers in a Philippine city endure grueling work and long hours to support their families. Here are two of their stories.
By Fr. Oliver McCrossan

Josefino: Overcoming A Disability
I met Josefino as he stopped to pick up a passenger. He was dripping head to foot from the heavy rain, and he looked miserable.

Josefino is just one of more than 3,000 sikad-sikad drivers in Ozamiz. These three-wheeled pedicabs are the city’s main means of public transportation.

Sikad-sikad (pronounced “see-kad”) literally means “to pedal with the feet.” Sikad-sikad drivers all come from the poorest barrios of Ozamiz City, and almost all are forced into this work because there just aren’t any other jobs available.

One positive from this is that Ozamiz has less pollution from traffic fumes and noise than other cities in the Philippines. The sikad-sikads provide jobs, and the local industry that manufactures and repairs pedicabs provides work for many others.

Josefino Baylo was born in 1965. His mother told me that when Josefino was very young, a local doctor gave him an overdose of medicine that left him paralyzed.

Josefino recovered somewhat, but he now walks with a limp. He did not finish high school, and as the eldest in his family, he was forced to leave school and work to support the family. He lived by the seashore, diving for crabs and selling them at the local market.

But this did not provide enough income for his family. So in 2002, and in spite of his severe handicap, he decided to drive a sikad-sikad. Josefino and his wife, Helen, have three children, ages 6, 4 and 1. Helen took in laundry for washing to earn money, but she got sick.

She says, “My back was painful, and I developed a stomach ulcer, so I had to stop.”

Josefino pedals passengers like these through Ozamiz streets on his three-wheeled pedicab called a sikad-sikad.

Josefino does not own his pedicab; he rents it for 50 pesos each day. After paying his rental fee every night, he takes home an average of 50 pesos, about 90 U.S. cents each day. This small amount has to take care of his family’s daily needs—a daily struggle just to survive.

“When I come home after a day out in the sun and rain, I have pains all over my body,” Josefino told me.

In spite of his disability, Josefino struggles on bravely to care for his family. His neighbors speak of his courage and hard work. They help as best they can, but most of them are poor as well.

Recently, Josefino joined an organization that campaigns for the rights of the disabled in Ozamiz. The organization only began two years ago and is slowly making progress with the support of the Columban Sisters. Josefino has applied for a loan of 5,000 pesos (about $90) from the organization so he can set up a little shop in his barrio.

After our visit, Josefino pedaled off into the rain, I have promised to visit him and his family. “I want you to visit and say a prayer for the success of my shop,” he says with excitement.

Ermon repairs a tire on the pedicab he bought 15 years ago. His pedicab driver income is about $1.50 a day.

Like many others here in Ozamiz, his house is built next to a health hazard. “In 1989,” he told me, “our house was destroyed by fire. We lost all we had, and we were forced to move here by the canal. We don’t notice the smell anymore.”

Ermon Lumanta was born in 1948 in Bohol, an island north of the Philippine island of Mindanao. “Life was tough growing up,” he said. “My father was a heavy gambler, and we were forced to sell our coconut plantation to pay off his gambling debts. My mother could take no more, so she left my father, taking with her my brother, sister and me.

I was only 12 years old at the time.”

When Ermon was 15 years old, his cousin took him to Ozamiz where he got a start in a bicycle repair shop. Soon, they were calling him the “bicycle man.” Ermon shows me his old and battered sikad-sikad. “I bought this second-hand pedicab for 1,000 pesos (about $20) 15 years ago, and it’s still in working order!” He has been pushing the pedicab for years around the streets of Ozamiz to supplement his income.

“It’s a hard life,” Ermon explains, “because we are out in all kinds of weather every day, just to earn a little to care for our families.” Ermon’s average daily income comes to about $1.50 in U.S. dollars.

Signs For A Better Future
In 1973, Ermon married Carmen. The couple has six children: two girls and four boys. In 1985, Ninyo was born at only four pounds.

Carmen says, “I was worried. He was 1-year-old, yet he was not speaking. We took him to the doctor who told us that due to a birth defect, he would never be able to hear or speak. It was very difficult for us to accept.”

But good news came to the Lumanta family. Columban Sister Mary McManus from the United States had just started a school for the deaf in Ozamiz, and Ninyo started attending the school. Ermon remembers the family’s gratitude to Sr. Mary and her Community of Hope School.

Ninyo graduated from elementary school and is now attending high school. He is adept at Sign Language and hopes some day to teach. He is 19 years old, a young man full of confidence.

Both of them are involved in the activities of the Community of Hope School. Ermon says, “Carmen is much better at ‘signing’ than me, because she has taken a course in Sign Language. We have seen how it helps the hearing-impaired and other children with special needs. We are proud to be a part of this work.”

Like his sikad-sikad, Ermon, Carmen and Ninyo have been suffered “the storms of life,” but they have never been overcome by them.

Fr. Oliver McCrossan of Ireland has worked as a missionary in the Philippines since 1976.