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Feminists Behind the Wheel
“We have a flat tire,” Celia, single, and a city councilor for several terms, reported. It was 7:30 in the evening and after driving for five hours and a half the two of us were finally 25 minutes away from home. Fortunately, there was one house nearby, civilization near enough for us to feel at least a little safe. There was some traffic on the highway but in the dark, help would not come easy. I was sorry I hadn’t brought the portable tire compressor that has inflated many a flat tire for me. My car was less than a year old and with it so new, I had been feeling invulnerable. Stupid to be so unprepared. A few minutes earlier, Celia and I had been planning an escapade, how the two of us would go off on an unplanned land and sea trip to wherever our whims took us should Manuel, my husband, go on an all boys trip to the US or wherever.
“The wonderful freedom of the road,” I was thinking. My mother never drove and because there was always Dad or a male driver, Mom never had a completely all girls out of town excursion. Then the flat tire. I opened the trunk and brought out the brand new spare tire and the brand new set of tools. Celia and I were driving home from Dumaguete, where she’d spoken about why women should join politics. It is our self appointed business to empower the women of Negros. I figured that even if I’d never changed a tire before, I should be able to manage. “Now where’s the jack? Crazy new Vios doesn’t have a jack.” “No problem,” Celia said. “We can always get a tricycle driver to borrow a jack and to change the tire.”
It doesn’t seem like too long ago when I couldn’t go 40 kilometers outside Bacolod without my husband driving for me or with me. Then came 1999, an all expense paid trip to Kamloops in British Columbia, a chance to see Banff in Alberta, and from there, go south to Omak., a small town in Washington State where I was a Rotary Exchange student in my senior year in High-School. “There’s a bus from Banff to Omak?” Manuel asked when I told him the itinerary I was planning. “No public busses. We’ll rent a car in Kamloops (about 4 hours from Vancouver), drive to Banff (I think about 8 hours), then drive the twelve hours to Omak. Celia and I will take turns.” “That’s a looong way,” my husband said. “You and the guys drove from California to Alberta then back to California. The roads are good, right?” I didn’t say, “If men can do it, women can do it too.” Instead, I reminded him – “I biked 12 hours from Kabankalan to Dumaguete (twice in 1997). If I was able to go that far and for that long on a bicycle, driving twelve hours should not be a problem. Are the roads steep?”
I practiced for Banff. First, Celia and I drove to a seminar in Rafael Salas Park in La Carlota. Although only about an hour and a half from Bacolod, the Park is in Mt. Kanlaon and there are stretches of road that have to be negotiated on first gear. There was smoke or steam and the smell of burning by the time we arrived. “You were clutch driving too much. Your radiator and your water are fine,” Celia said. Very clever of her to know. Going down, I asked her to drive. On a ten speed bike during the mid-seventies, I was speeding down the Mambucal zig-zag with Manuel and would have over-shot a sharp turn if I hadn’t swerved and fallen. Less than two feet away from my unprotected skull (no helmets then) was a huge rock. Until Manuel taught me about driving down steep descents using 2nd or 3rd gear to activate the engine brake, I hated steep descents as much as I hated not having control.
Soon enough, Celia and I were official visitors of the City of Kamloops, British Columbia. Our visit there was part of a technical exchange program in which we were supposed to learn how to set up domestic violence quick response teams in Bacolod barangays. The women in charge of us in Kamloops were very nice but they said, “No, you can’t rent a car to go to Banff. We’re responsible for getting you back safely so you have to fly straight back home.” But there were other friends who thought we should see Banff, two lady councilors and the city administrator – “Of course you can go. Anyone who can drive in the crazy streets of Bacolod will have no problem driving here. Just don’t try to overtake the long hauling trucks.”
We drove to Banff that early spring in 1999, Celia and me with Carmen and June, two equally empowered Bacolod women as passengers. Carmen was a female police officer who was big and strong and Celia and I were sure would be able to do male things like changing tires or getting a stalled car moving (found out when we were there that she was more helpless with cars than Celia and I were). Then, while we were driving from Banff to Lake Louis in the way south to Omak, “Look, it is snowing.” Celia and I went out to have our picture taken with the snowflakes falling around us. Although there was plenty of snow in Banff, this was the first snowfall for my three companions. But we had difficulty convincing police officer Carmen to join us for a picture. June simply refused to leave the car (found out later that fear had melted her knees).
The snowfall thickened. There was very little traffic on our side so no tire tracks to follow, only the embankment on our left and the steady flow of vehicles going the opposite direction to tell us more or less where our road was supposed to be. Ever so often, we’d see signs – “Slippery road, Tire Chains required.” I was the one who’d planned the itinerary and the car rental. I was responsible. I was the driver. And we didn’t have tire chains. To make matters worse, every time we encountered a hauler, its tires would splatter muddy snow all over our windshield. I didn’t say anything about the tire chains we didn’t have and all we could do was pray every time we passed signs that said, “Avalance prone area.” Four women on the road in a snowstorm in unknown territory and this time, there was no calling a man for help. We prayed non-stop. Fortunately, God is neither he nor she. It was good to be able to keep this an all girls trip.
Several months after that trip, June asked me to speak to women in Sipalay. “How are we going to get there?” I asked her. “You can bring your car. We have a budget for an overnight stay in the beach front cottage in Happy Valley in Hinobaan (about 200 km. from Bacolod). I’ll bring Demi and Richie (at that time, maybe 8 yrs. old and 6 yrs. old).” In 1999 or 2000, the road to Hinobaan was newly paved but it wasn’t long before when Hinobaan and Sipalay were part of the infamous NPA (New People’s Army) infested CHICKS area. Two women driving themselves and little kids to Hinobaan and Sipalay was a little bit out of the question.
“Nuel, June and I are going to Sipalay and sleeping overnight in Hino-baan next week.” “How are you going to get there?” Manuel asked. “I’ll drive.” “Who’s going with you?” “Just June and her two kids. I’m bringing Michelle (10 yrs. old at that time). “Hino-baan is a little bit far,” Manuel said cautiously. “The road is good, right?” “The road is good,” he said. “Is the road anywhere as steep as it is going to Rafael Salas park (Mt. Kanlaon) in La Carlota?” I asked. “Nowhere as steep,” he said.
Manuel got me new tubeless tires and a compressor so I could go anywhere without fear. Feeling totally self-contained and thrilled by the new sense of freedom and empowerment, my thoughts turned to my mother who never had a chance for such a get-away away from husband and kids. The Sipalay-Hinobaan trip was made more exciting by the fact that instead of Celia who is competent on the road because she has no husband to rescue her, the one with me was June, the one who lost her knees because of a very light snowfall. The escapade made true a dream I had not even thought of dreaming. June and I set up house in the little blue roofed white cottage at the edge of the sea shore. Two women, three kids, no men and we were doing just fine. In timeless rhythm, moonlit waves lapped peacefully at the sand just outside our screened terrace. Unexpected friends, a couple renting a cottage in the next resort, discovered us and invited us for dinner, privileging us with company and saving us the trouble of cooking and cleaning up, traditional women’s work. After June and the kids turned in for the night, I stayed up to watch the moon play on the water and to wonder at the sheer joy of my woman’s life.
In 2001, the new bishop rallied the faithful to join a caravan to protest illegal logging in Salvador Benedicto, a town along the newly opened highway cutting through the mountains between Murcia and San Carlos. It was an activity I couldn’t miss but my Corolla was no longer in shape fit for the ordeal of steep and unfinished mountain roads. “Come with me,” I invited Manuel. “Can’t, but there’s no reason you can’t drive the pick-up,” Manuel said. “Here’s how to change to four wheel drive.” I had to drive something and since he was sure I could drive the pick-up. . . . I didn’t know there was something the matter with the clutch. The first time I stopped for a red light, when the light turned green, the clutch was stuck and I could not shift from fourth gear to first (I had a bad habit of braking with the gear staying wherever it was). Impatient drivers honked behind me. A traffic cop came up, “What’s the matter?” “I can’t shift, crazy pick-up.” I was going to drive up the long steep mountain roads of Salvador Benedicto and I couldn’t even get the pick-up through a Bacolod stop-light. . . . I turned off the engine and called my husband. “Give it another try,” he said. I discovered that with the engine off, I could shift to first gear. Voila. Several years later, I taught someone with a similar problem how turning off the engine would allow him to shift gears. How clever to be able to teach a male driver what to do.
Another year passed. My usually trouble-free 1993 Corolla began feeling its age. One day, while Celia was riding with me, the car stopped in the middle of the road. “No problem,” Celia said. “Your car has overheated.” I was amazed that she knew, although the temperature gauge showed that she was right. She got me to open the hood, found a rag, and carefully opened the radiator tank. From somewhere we got water and not long after, were rolling again. Neat trick. The next time this happened, I knew exactly what to do. Wonderful, not having to call my husband to rescue me and my car.
In time, driving long distances stopped being an issue although my Corolla had to retire from out of town travel. Manuel drove for me when I had invitations to speak in Kanlaon City and in Dumaguete. I braved Candoni by myself, driving the Toyota Hi-lux pick-up. When I told Manuel I was driving my new Vios to bring Celia to Dumaguete for a talk, aside from wondering why I was using my car when I had no business going there, Manuel did not question my capacity to drive the distance.
After the flat, Manuel went with me to the service center, and then to look for a new Dunlop tire which costs about P3,500 plus I don’t know how much for wheel alignment. The joy ride could have cost more, of course. Instead of scolding me, the only thing Manuel said and he said this very gently, was “next time you go on a long trip, check your tire air pressure.” Always a new lesson to learn and a good thing that. Meanwhile, long live the men who understand that women too need the freedom of the road.
“The wonderful freedom of the road,” I was thinking. My mother never drove and because there was always Dad or a male driver, Mom never had a completely all girls out of town excursion. Then the flat tire. I opened the trunk and brought out the brand new spare tire and the brand new set of tools. Celia and I were driving home from Dumaguete, where she’d spoken about why women should join politics. It is our self appointed business to empower the women of Negros. I figured that even if I’d never changed a tire before, I should be able to manage. “Now where’s the jack? Crazy new Vios doesn’t have a jack.” “No problem,” Celia said. “We can always get a tricycle driver to borrow a jack and to change the tire.”
It doesn’t seem like too long ago when I couldn’t go 40 kilometers outside Bacolod without my husband driving for me or with me. Then came 1999, an all expense paid trip to Kamloops in British Columbia, a chance to see Banff in Alberta, and from there, go south to Omak., a small town in Washington State where I was a Rotary Exchange student in my senior year in High-School. “There’s a bus from Banff to Omak?” Manuel asked when I told him the itinerary I was planning. “No public busses. We’ll rent a car in Kamloops (about 4 hours from Vancouver), drive to Banff (I think about 8 hours), then drive the twelve hours to Omak. Celia and I will take turns.” “That’s a looong way,” my husband said. “You and the guys drove from California to Alberta then back to California. The roads are good, right?” I didn’t say, “If men can do it, women can do it too.” Instead, I reminded him – “I biked 12 hours from Kabankalan to Dumaguete (twice in 1997). If I was able to go that far and for that long on a bicycle, driving twelve hours should not be a problem. Are the roads steep?”
I practiced for Banff. First, Celia and I drove to a seminar in Rafael Salas Park in La Carlota. Although only about an hour and a half from Bacolod, the Park is in Mt. Kanlaon and there are stretches of road that have to be negotiated on first gear. There was smoke or steam and the smell of burning by the time we arrived. “You were clutch driving too much. Your radiator and your water are fine,” Celia said. Very clever of her to know. Going down, I asked her to drive. On a ten speed bike during the mid-seventies, I was speeding down the Mambucal zig-zag with Manuel and would have over-shot a sharp turn if I hadn’t swerved and fallen. Less than two feet away from my unprotected skull (no helmets then) was a huge rock. Until Manuel taught me about driving down steep descents using 2nd or 3rd gear to activate the engine brake, I hated steep descents as much as I hated not having control.
Soon enough, Celia and I were official visitors of the City of Kamloops, British Columbia. Our visit there was part of a technical exchange program in which we were supposed to learn how to set up domestic violence quick response teams in Bacolod barangays. The women in charge of us in Kamloops were very nice but they said, “No, you can’t rent a car to go to Banff. We’re responsible for getting you back safely so you have to fly straight back home.” But there were other friends who thought we should see Banff, two lady councilors and the city administrator – “Of course you can go. Anyone who can drive in the crazy streets of Bacolod will have no problem driving here. Just don’t try to overtake the long hauling trucks.”
We drove to Banff that early spring in 1999, Celia and me with Carmen and June, two equally empowered Bacolod women as passengers. Carmen was a female police officer who was big and strong and Celia and I were sure would be able to do male things like changing tires or getting a stalled car moving (found out when we were there that she was more helpless with cars than Celia and I were). Then, while we were driving from Banff to Lake Louis in the way south to Omak, “Look, it is snowing.” Celia and I went out to have our picture taken with the snowflakes falling around us. Although there was plenty of snow in Banff, this was the first snowfall for my three companions. But we had difficulty convincing police officer Carmen to join us for a picture. June simply refused to leave the car (found out later that fear had melted her knees).
The snowfall thickened. There was very little traffic on our side so no tire tracks to follow, only the embankment on our left and the steady flow of vehicles going the opposite direction to tell us more or less where our road was supposed to be. Ever so often, we’d see signs – “Slippery road, Tire Chains required.” I was the one who’d planned the itinerary and the car rental. I was responsible. I was the driver. And we didn’t have tire chains. To make matters worse, every time we encountered a hauler, its tires would splatter muddy snow all over our windshield. I didn’t say anything about the tire chains we didn’t have and all we could do was pray every time we passed signs that said, “Avalance prone area.” Four women on the road in a snowstorm in unknown territory and this time, there was no calling a man for help. We prayed non-stop. Fortunately, God is neither he nor she. It was good to be able to keep this an all girls trip.
Several months after that trip, June asked me to speak to women in Sipalay. “How are we going to get there?” I asked her. “You can bring your car. We have a budget for an overnight stay in the beach front cottage in Happy Valley in Hinobaan (about 200 km. from Bacolod). I’ll bring Demi and Richie (at that time, maybe 8 yrs. old and 6 yrs. old).” In 1999 or 2000, the road to Hinobaan was newly paved but it wasn’t long before when Hinobaan and Sipalay were part of the infamous NPA (New People’s Army) infested CHICKS area. Two women driving themselves and little kids to Hinobaan and Sipalay was a little bit out of the question.
“Nuel, June and I are going to Sipalay and sleeping overnight in Hino-baan next week.” “How are you going to get there?” Manuel asked. “I’ll drive.” “Who’s going with you?” “Just June and her two kids. I’m bringing Michelle (10 yrs. old at that time). “Hino-baan is a little bit far,” Manuel said cautiously. “The road is good, right?” “The road is good,” he said. “Is the road anywhere as steep as it is going to Rafael Salas park (Mt. Kanlaon) in La Carlota?” I asked. “Nowhere as steep,” he said.
Manuel got me new tubeless tires and a compressor so I could go anywhere without fear. Feeling totally self-contained and thrilled by the new sense of freedom and empowerment, my thoughts turned to my mother who never had a chance for such a get-away away from husband and kids. The Sipalay-Hinobaan trip was made more exciting by the fact that instead of Celia who is competent on the road because she has no husband to rescue her, the one with me was June, the one who lost her knees because of a very light snowfall. The escapade made true a dream I had not even thought of dreaming. June and I set up house in the little blue roofed white cottage at the edge of the sea shore. Two women, three kids, no men and we were doing just fine. In timeless rhythm, moonlit waves lapped peacefully at the sand just outside our screened terrace. Unexpected friends, a couple renting a cottage in the next resort, discovered us and invited us for dinner, privileging us with company and saving us the trouble of cooking and cleaning up, traditional women’s work. After June and the kids turned in for the night, I stayed up to watch the moon play on the water and to wonder at the sheer joy of my woman’s life.
In 2001, the new bishop rallied the faithful to join a caravan to protest illegal logging in Salvador Benedicto, a town along the newly opened highway cutting through the mountains between Murcia and San Carlos. It was an activity I couldn’t miss but my Corolla was no longer in shape fit for the ordeal of steep and unfinished mountain roads. “Come with me,” I invited Manuel. “Can’t, but there’s no reason you can’t drive the pick-up,” Manuel said. “Here’s how to change to four wheel drive.” I had to drive something and since he was sure I could drive the pick-up. . . . I didn’t know there was something the matter with the clutch. The first time I stopped for a red light, when the light turned green, the clutch was stuck and I could not shift from fourth gear to first (I had a bad habit of braking with the gear staying wherever it was). Impatient drivers honked behind me. A traffic cop came up, “What’s the matter?” “I can’t shift, crazy pick-up.” I was going to drive up the long steep mountain roads of Salvador Benedicto and I couldn’t even get the pick-up through a Bacolod stop-light. . . . I turned off the engine and called my husband. “Give it another try,” he said. I discovered that with the engine off, I could shift to first gear. Voila. Several years later, I taught someone with a similar problem how turning off the engine would allow him to shift gears. How clever to be able to teach a male driver what to do.
Another year passed. My usually trouble-free 1993 Corolla began feeling its age. One day, while Celia was riding with me, the car stopped in the middle of the road. “No problem,” Celia said. “Your car has overheated.” I was amazed that she knew, although the temperature gauge showed that she was right. She got me to open the hood, found a rag, and carefully opened the radiator tank. From somewhere we got water and not long after, were rolling again. Neat trick. The next time this happened, I knew exactly what to do. Wonderful, not having to call my husband to rescue me and my car.
In time, driving long distances stopped being an issue although my Corolla had to retire from out of town travel. Manuel drove for me when I had invitations to speak in Kanlaon City and in Dumaguete. I braved Candoni by myself, driving the Toyota Hi-lux pick-up. When I told Manuel I was driving my new Vios to bring Celia to Dumaguete for a talk, aside from wondering why I was using my car when I had no business going there, Manuel did not question my capacity to drive the distance.
After the flat, Manuel went with me to the service center, and then to look for a new Dunlop tire which costs about P3,500 plus I don’t know how much for wheel alignment. The joy ride could have cost more, of course. Instead of scolding me, the only thing Manuel said and he said this very gently, was “next time you go on a long trip, check your tire air pressure.” Always a new lesson to learn and a good thing that. Meanwhile, long live the men who understand that women too need the freedom of the road.
Tags: driving, empowerment, feminist, women
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