February 17, 2016
Rest day in General MacArthur, Eastern Samar
A pedal-powered tricycle goes by many names in the Philippines – three-wheeler, tri-sikad, pedicab, or padyak. However we baptize it, this vehicle is a vital means of transportation, especially in the provinces. Where you come from, chances are, a pedicab is with a sidecar. But sometimes the sidecar is missing – there's a variation known as "three-wheeler" or "wheeler" for short in my home province, particularly in the City of San Fernando, Pampanga (more on that later) while in Northern Mindanao Region, they are called "tri-sikad" or simply "sikad" (with a sidecar) – both have 20"(406mm) tires/rims like BMX. Here in Eastern Visayas Region, they are referred to as pedicab, same as in Metro Manila but equipped with 28"(635mm) wheels (bigger than the junior-size ones in Pampanga and Manila) like those in San Pedro, Laguna.
My first experience with a human-propelled tricycle was in 2006 when I bought a "tri-sikad" in Cagayan de Oro City to use it for bringing my then young children to school and my wife to her office but that was just a subterfuge. It has something to do with my secret training for my planned long distance bike touring at that time. I did that for two years until some of my kids' classmates joked about their daddy being a bicycle mechanic and a "sikad" driver. I couldn't care less, it was our only means of transportation when our car was inundated by flash floods brought about by Typhoon Sendong in 2011. I still use it every now and then.
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