Bus Company Abandons Honesty System, Says 30% of Passengers Don't Pay Their Fare

In what may very well be called a microcosm of Philippine society today, the Green Frog Hybrid Bus Company--which plys the Mall of Asia Complex to the C5/Kalayaan Avenue  route--has announced that it is canceling its 'Honesty System' scheme after it was determined that over 30 percent of its passengers didn't pay their fare.

In a post it shared yesterday, March 20, on its Facebook account, the Green Frog Hybris Bus Company posted the following message:

SERVICE UPDATE: End of Honesty System. We are disappointed to see that the honesty system did not work. Over 30% of the passengers did not pay their fare. We are returning to the conductor fare collection system again.

Although the bus company didn't specifically say when it started the 'Honesty System' for paying the fare, it did say that effective March 11, it will strictly enact the use of either tap cards--which is similar to the one used in the LRTs, the MRT, and the BGC bus transport sytem--or have passengers pay the exact fare. When the bus company made the announcement on March 5, six days before the implementation, it said that "There will be no conductors to give you change." The bus company event went so far as to say in its post that "This is how its (sic) done in First World countries. This is how Green Frog will do it from now on."

Well, a little over a week later and the Green Frog Hybrid Bus Company has given up on the 'Honesty System' and is instead going back to the old-fashioned fare collection system of using a conductor.

The Green Frog Hybrid Bus Company isn't the first one to try the 'Honesty System' for its public utility bus service. Back in July 2018, the G. Liner Bus Company, which plys the Cainta to Quiapo, Manila route, also ran an 'Honesty Bus' where passengers were instructed to drop and pay the exact fare for their trip inside the fare box. While a subsequent posting on August 31, 2018 on its Facebook account states that the 'Honesty Bus' was still operational, that was also the last post on the social media network so we have no idea if the said bus is still operational to this day.

So, if , we can't even pay for our fare as commuters riding a vehicle that gives us a service that's similar to what First World countries experience, then we really deserve to be stuck as a Third World country. This is why we can't have nice things.