Bus drivers in Manila are given a hard time by everyone. The poor guys. Just because most of them probably never even went to bus driver school, don't know how to use their rearview mirrors and have a total disregard for safety, doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy a good warm hug at the end of the day.
Seriously though, these drivers get very little money in terms of their base monthly salary and just make up for it through commission on the number of passengers they can cram into their buses and how many trips they make in a day. Now there must be at least a hundred bus companies operating in Metro Manila alone, so each driver from all these companies is battling it out with one another every day to snag every possible passenger on the road. This directly equates to the reckless, lane-swerving shenanigans we witness everyday on EDSA. Hence, no matter what kind of zoning, bus-only lane, or designated stops schemes the MMDA concocts up, a poor bus driver will always see those idle passengers as more money and more food on the table for their families.
The reason public bus systems in other developed countries work so well is because there are only a handful of operators running in any given city. That and the fact that drivers get a sufficient base salary. In other words, adequately-paid drivers aren’t desperate for passengers and will more likely follow traffic rules and bus stop regulations.
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