SUGAR CANE TRUCKS

Most of the crops upon the islands of the Philippines are composed of rice, corn, and sugar cane, but on the island of Negros, the two major crops are rice and sugar cane.   Due to its small granular size, rice is easily transportable.  It can be hauled with anything from a wooden carabao (water buffalo) cart to a large straight truck.  However, most times a Jeepney or small pickup is utilized for the task at hand.  On the other hand, sugar cane has substance.  The plants can produce upwards of twenty pounds of sugar cane per square meter (10.76 sq. ft) and, in this part of the country, the plants grow from around six to nine feet in height.  The sugar cane is processed into granulated brown and white sugar, molasses, alcohol, and ethanol.

The cane is harvested from the first of October to April in our area.  They are cut by hand here.  In fact many of the natives derive their annual livelihood from the sugar cane harvest.   Decades ago, narrow gauge railroad tracks criss-crossed the sugar cane fields of Negros. There the workers would load the cut stalks upon small metal flat cars which were then transported to the sugar mills for processing.  I have yet to find out the reason that system ceased, but I do know that the railroad track through Himamaylan disappeared in the early 90s. One day the track was there and the next day it was gone.  A humorous side note is that after the last train passed, it was said the locals yanked the rails out themselves to make money off the scrap iron.  Whether fact or fantasy, it is a known truth those rails are long gone and the only evidence they even existed is where the tracks still cross the roadways along with rusting trestles quietly decaying away over the many streams and rivers. 

Now-a-days it is trucks that transport the fibrous product.  The vehicles are mostly straight trucks and definitely of vintage design.   If I had to give an average age for the fleet of THOUSANDS of trucks, it would be around forty or more years old.  The Filipinos are resilient folk.  The front ends, engines, and transmissions of the carriers are kept up, but when the cabs rust out, they are replaced with a wooden box (no doors) and bamboo seats.   A fair share of the trucks are old army surplus vehicles with ages ranging from the early 50s to 80s.  I have read online where there were some World War Two trucks still in use, but the oldest that I could recognize were from the early 50s.  Still, I was amazed at how those rigs were maintained.  A case in point was a welding shop down the road from me that took a metal cab completely apart and then pieced it back together.  Rusted out pieces were cut away as new patches were welded into place.  When they were done repainting, the cab looked (almost) like new.  One would also be amazed at the paint schemes on many of the transports.  Many were in bright colors while a few adorned designs to express their individuality. 

The trucks came in all different shapes, sizes, colors, makes, and models.  I would guess the most common names I had noticed were Isuzu, Fuso, and Nissan.  There were some Ford, International Harvester, and Chevrolet trucks too, but not too many.  I will admit those carriers were the biggest air polluters of anything I had ever come across.  They would belch out banks of black exhaust, literally leaving a haze in the air as a line of five or six or more would pass.  About three or four times each week I’d sit upon a bench alongside the highway watching the traffic pass and allow the people an opportunity to stare at me (literally, as none of the foreigners I had ever seen or known did anything like that).  When the sugar cane trucks passed, the air was so filled with black soot it was difficult to breathe and probably why so many Filipinos wore masks when traveling or walking along the throughway.

OK, back to the story, the sugar cane would be cut by the workers and loaded into wooden carts pulled by Carabao (Water Buffalo – remember?).  Then the carts would be driven across the field  to the side of the road where the cut cane was unloaded into piles.  Those piles were then picked up by other workers who flung them over their shoulders, and walked up a twelve-inch wide plank into the metal box of the truck.  A man, positioned inside, possessed the mother of all bolo knives of which to cut and fit the cane tightly into the metal compartment.  As the sugar cane reached the top of the box, the cutter installed vertical slats of sugar cane and continued to build the pile ever higher.  When completed, the stack of cane could reach upward of fifteen feet from the bed of the box and extend two or three feet out the back of the container.  They would place a tarp over the back end of the pile in an attempt to keep the load from falling out, but all too often it didn’t work.   You would be amazed at the number of three and four foot piles of fallen stalks which had piled up on your side of the highway with no guilty truck to be found.  Another transport that was constantly rumbling up and down the highway was Molasses tankers.  I liked being behind them, because of the aroma they emitted.  Then one day, I came upon a “spill”.  A carrier had lost part of his load of molasses upon the roadway.  Fortunately, I was traveling in the opposite lane and able to move over to the far right side of the pavement.  However, the northbound traffic had to slop through the sticky goo, most likely coating the undersides along with outer sides of their metal bodies.   Had it been me, the shoes and clothing would have suffered greatly not to mention trying to negotiate two wheels through that slippery mess.

The more sugar cane you could get into the box, the more profitable the trip.  The consequence of such mentality was the risk of tipping the load over at a curve or corner.  Several times since the season began I had witnessed that unfortunate result. Fortunately, for me I did not see any hapless victims (vehicles/trikes/motorbikes/pedestrians) underneath the burdensome cargo.  The flattened  load would sit there for HOURS until another truck and crew could be hired to transfer the sugar cane from the deceased metal beast.  I never did see how they got the trucks upright again, but I never saw a crane in the vicinity either.  Almost everything was done by manual labor in the Philippines.  One day I actually saw a group of three Filipinos push an empty dump truck over a busy bridge south of Bacolod….and yes I did get a picture of it.

When the transports were fully loaded, they lumbered down the highways like a herd of migrating elephants, dangerously slow and if one sugar cane carrier was passing another, it was an even slower process.  Those were the times I have had to get off the road or end up becoming a “Biker in Pavement” blemish (Gee, I think my carcass would cover a lot of pavement).  Quite often they traveled in groups of two or more and made traveling upon the highways more challenging.  It was especially so as you were encountering empty cane trucks careening down the roadway in the opposite direction.  You really didn’t want to ride behind either the empty or full transports as you were constantly assailed by fibrous debris.  In the states, the rule for motorcycles was to never ride behind livestock or gravel transports.  In the Philippines, sugar cane trucks could be added to that list. 

There aren’t that many processing plants in Negros Occidental for sugar cane. One of the largest is the Biscom facility in Binalbagan.  In the morning, the parking areas for sugar cane trucks would be empty, but by mid afternoon, the gigantic lots would be filled with loaded vehicles awaiting their turn to deliver their produce.  Many times, the sides of the highway would also be lined with those carriers as lots overflowed.   Some of the drivers would congregate into small groups or at the nearby Sari Sari store (small roadside grocer) while others would sling hammocks underneath the boxes of their rigs to get some much needed sleep.

During this time of year, it seemed the only broken down vehicles were those loaded with sugar cane trucks.  Most of the time flat tires were the culprit.  What amazed me though was they would change them with the full load above.  Yes, there were accidents which comprised mostly of head-on or rear end collisions, but I even observed one that had been hit in the side.    It didn’t matter whether you were coming down the highway or not, when they pulled into the roadway, all vehicles swerved or stopped.  Then you never really knew how many were driving without a chauffeur’s, much less a driver’s license.

After the fields had been cleared of the cane, they were set ablaze to burn off the residue.  The smoke filled the air with such a sweet (almost intoxicating) aroma.  On any given day, you could see individual towers of white smoke rising above the coastline as well as up on the mountain sides.  An annual ritual of clearing out the old and preparing for the new planting season to begin.

Sugar cane has been in the Philippines since the Spanish discovered this land in the 15oos. Through feast and famine, it has continued to sustain the livelihood of thousands of families and with ethanol production in its future, I am confident that it will be a invaluable crop for decades to come.