EDUARDO SANTOS DELA CRUZ

Jeepney driver, hands-on tatay and the heart of a Quezon City street

Every morning for forty-four years, Eduardo Dela Cruz was the first jeepney out of the Project 6 terminal, his dashboard crowded with a plastic Santo Niño, a laminated photograph of his wife and a hand-lettered sign that read 'Mag-ingat po sa biyahe,' travel safely. Passengers set their watches by him.

Born in Lubao, Pampanga, he came to Manila at twenty to drive for an uncle, learning the streets between Cubao and Quiapo until he could navigate them in the dark and in flood. In 1976 he married Remedios Alcantara, a young nurse from his hometown. When she took a contract in Riyadh in 1981, the two agreed that someone had to stay, and Eddie, with three small children and a jeepney, became the parent at home. He braided Mia's hair, signed report cards, packed baon at dawn and drove the children to school on his route, dropping them at the gate with a loud honk that embarrassed them for years. He never missed a PTA meeting, and was often the only father in the room.

Passengers knew him as Mang Eddie, the driver who waited for the old woman with the cane, who let students ride free at the end of the month and who sang along to the AM radio. On Sundays he washed the jeepney until its chrome blazed, then cooked pancit palabok for the whole street. He loved the Ginebra basketball team and fell asleep to the commentary every night. He died on 27 December 2019, aged seventy-one, the day after the family's Christmas lunch, laughing at one of his own jokes. He is survived by Remedios, his wife of forty-three years, their children Joy, Carlo and Mia, and seven grandchildren who still call every jeepney 'Lolo's.'

“Basta may pasahero, may biyahe. As long as there is a passenger, there is a journey.”