On Baguio’s steep roads, the exhaust is at its worst on the climb. Lawrence Raymundo, 32, knows this well enough that he distances himself from the vehicle in front of him.
Raymundo has spent a decade behind the wheel in the highland city. First as a company driver, then a taxi driver, a delivery truck driver, and just this year, as a jeepney driver.
He said he developed asthma after moving to Baguio from La Union.
“Ang ginagawa na lang minsan… ‘yung tatakip na lang ng ilong kasi lumalala ‘yung asthma ko. (What I do sometimes is I just cover my nose because my asthma might be triggered),” Raymundo said.
He tries to ease the strain by driving slowly uphill, but the smoke still seeps in.
“Dinadahan-dahan ko na lang lalo na po ‘pag akyatan [para] hindi mapunta sa akin ‘yung usok. At saka lalong-lalo na doon sa mga pasahero rin. Nakukulong dito sa loob ng jeep iyong usok,” Raymundo said.
(I just drive slowly, especially when climbing steep roads, so that the exhaust does not reach me and, especially, my passengers as well. The smoke could get trapped inside the jeep.)
Raymundo is one of the 2,000 jeepney drivers regularly exposed to Baguio’s air pollution. In the first part of this investigation, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism showed that Baguio’s air repeatedly reaches unhealthy levels, falling short of global health standards even as the city markets itself as a health sanctuary.
In this second part, PCIJ finds that the people among the most exposed—the drivers who keep the city moving—are left to manage that risk on their own.
Everyone points to the same answer: cleaner emissions.
The environment department sets the standards that lag behind what the World Health Organization considers safe, the transportation agencies run a modernization program that drivers still cannot afford to join, and the city government tries to patch what it can.
But no one owns the problem, and the drivers are left to breathe polluted air.
Inhaling toxic fumes as ‘part of the job’
Wilson Bumay-et Jr., a jeepney driver and operator and the president of the Baguio-Benguet Jeepney Federation, said that exposure to air pollution barely registers as a concern for jeepney drivers. Survival does.
“Kasi ang driver natin, wala ‘yon sa kaisipan nila eh. Basta ang sa kanila, mag-drive and then ‘yong kikitain. ‘Yun ang iniisip nila,” Bumay-et said. (Because our drivers, they do not think about air pollution. For them, what matters is driving and earning.)
Some drivers, he said, have become accustomed to wearing surgical face masks because of the pandemic.
“‘Yung sa usok, mapapansin lang nila pag naka-face mask sila and then pag-uuwi na sila ng gabi, ‘Bakit ang itim ng face mask?’ Doon lang sila naba-bother,” said Bumay-et, who added he experienced it firsthand as well.
(For the smoke, they will only notice that when they wear a face mask and come home at night, and ask, “Why is my face mask tinted black?” That’s the only time it bothers them.)
As president of a jeepney federation, Bumay-et said that he reminds the drivers to wear face masks when they can, sometimes handing out surgical masks himself.
“Sa aming mga drivers, parang nakasanayan na namin na parang kahit mausok ‘yon, malanghap na mabahong usok ng sasakyan. Kasi ‘yun nga ang trabaho—talagang parte ng trabaho. Para maiwasan, gumamit na lang tayo ng face mask.”
(For us drivers, we are used to inhaling exhaust from vehicles. Because that is the job—it’s really part of the job. So to avoid it, let’s just wear face masks.”
Epidemiologist Dr. John Wong said, however, that the burden should not fall on the drivers. In occupational health, hazards are addressed in this order: first by engineering them out, then through administrative controls like reducing exposure hours or improving terminal ventilation. Masks come last.
But Wong acknowledged that it is difficult to reduce drivers’ hours on the road as their earnings depend on them.
“If you use PPE (personal protective equipment), use it only as a last resort—and temporarily—until you can fix the engineering. Also, it can be expensive if every day they (jeepney drivers) have to buy, considering their very small margins,” Wong said.
“So if it helps them, they should be encouraged to use it. But we shouldn’t put the burden on them,” he added.
The city’s response: ‘Reverse Baguio’s urban decay’
At its worst, Baguio was the country’s most polluted city, but by 2023, it recorded lower fine particulate matter (PM2.5) levels than most Metro Manila cities. Behind that turnaround was a years-long effort by the city government to reverse what it calls “urban decay.”
When a 2019 study confirmed Baguio had already breached its urban carrying capacity—its roads, water, and other systems overwhelmed by decades of unchecked growth—the city government began taking action.
The Department of Economy, Planning, and Development study came at a time when former president Rodrigo Duterte had just closed down Boracay Island for six months due to what he referred to as “cesspool” conditions. Baguio was among the top tourism sites that the environmental department said needed rehabilitation next.
Unlike Boracay, Baguio would be impossible to close as it is a government center, an education hub, and the gateway to the Cordilleras.
Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong took office that year with air quality among the city’s stated environmental concerns.
“Wag tayong masaktan ‘pag sinasabi nila na ang Baguio, nag-urban decay. Aminin natin. Kasi doon ka pa lang makakagawa ng tunay na solusyon kung inaamin mo ‘yung problem,” said Rhenan Diwas, Baguio City Environment and Parks Management Office head.
(Let’s not be hurt when they say that Baguio is undergoing urban decay. Let’s admit it. Because once you admit that there is a problem, that’s when you will be able to work on a solution.)
The city expanded roadside emissions inspections and tightened enforcement of zoning rules. It introduced pedestrian-priority streets and began developing satellite parks in outlying barangays to ease pressure on the city center.
His office also formulated a forest management plan as part of a larger effort to create carbon sinks in the city, noting that pine trees are actually carbon contributors rather than absorbers.
Officials also rolled out traffic rerouting schemes that help reduce the strain on engines climbing steep roads, though Diwas said it is imperfect on Baguio’s winding terrain.
“Our goal is net zero [emissions]. Of course, what we’re doing right now will not entirely solve the problem, but at least we are able to mitigate it. One step at a time,” Diwas said.
The city is also trying to improve how it measures the problem. Smart poles installed across local roads now function as streetlights, CCTV cameras, and air quality monitors, feeding real-time data into a central command system. But these poles track overall air quality indices, not the more precise concentrations of PM2.5.
On the ground, the jeepney drivers PCIJ spoke with said the city has stepped up engagement, particularly to help them avoid fines. Some now clean their exhaust pipes before voluntary inspections to reduce visible soot, though “cleaner” smoke does not necessarily mean cleaner emissions.
Asked whether the city’s standards for the roadside inspections are enough, Diwas instead pointed to the modernization of public transport as one way to address the emissions problem.
In January, the city government signed a public-private partnership with Megawide Construction Corporation to build an integrated transport terminal for incoming vehicles. Megawide built and managed the Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange, the country’s first intermodal transport hub.
The Baguio City Integrated Terminal, which would sit four kilometers from the town proper and with a planned shuttle service into the city center, is aimed at reducing vehicle congestion.
Seven years after taking office, Magalong is in his penultimate year. Air pollution levels have not returned to their 2010 peak and 2023 figures are lower than pre-pandemic averages.
But Diwas says the timeline for meaningful change extends far beyond a single administration.
“If we don’t do anything by 2043, urban decay will become irreversible. All our efforts now are towards curbing that urban decay. So that by 2043, we will be a livable city,” said Diwas.
Public transport modernization and its limits
In 2019, the “pursuit” of the public utility vehicle (PUV) modernization program was among the projects listed as solutions to fixing traffic in Baguio.
The program, pushed by the national government since 2017, requires public transport units to meet the cleaner Euro-4-compliant standards for public transport—a shift both Diwas and Environmental Management Bureau Regional Director Jean Borromeo say is necessary to significantly cut pollution.
The modernization program aims to replace PUVs older than 15 years to comply with environmental safety standards, though this has stalled given pushback from the sector. Modern jeepneys have a price tag of at least P2.8 million.
For Baguio drivers, the transition remains financially out of reach.
Bumay-et and Archie Loyosen, both jeepney federation presidents, said that if the government would give subsidies of at least P1 million (US$16,000) per driver, then it would make the shift workable.
“May kabutihan rin yung modernization actually eh. Kaso ‘yong pag-substitute ng units, ‘yon, doon tayo nagkakaproblema. (Modernization has its advantages, actually. But the substitution of units, that’s where we have a problem),” Bumay-et said.
The drivers are also proposing a different approach: retrofitting existing jeepneys with cleaner engines.
“Puwede namang i-remedy, palitan ng mga bagong makina kahit Euro-6.… ’Yon ang dapat na gawin o i-push ng LTFRB (Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board) na mangyari para mas maka-adopt,” Loyosen said.
(We can just remedy that by replacing it with new engines that are Euro-6-compliant. That’s what the LTFRB should do or push for so that more drivers can adopt.)
The idea has also been raised by advocates and industry players. Local jeepney manufacturer Sarao Motors said in January that retrofitting could be a more viable option and is studying its potential costs to present to transport authorities.
Full replacement requires loans and significantly higher daily earnings to pay for new units, which Bumay-et said is difficult to meet, especially for shorter routes earning less. He also pointed out that buying modern jeepneys is even more impossible for most drivers right now amid elevated fuel costs.
Loyosen said that while their group has bought modern units, its drivers, even operators, could not afford to follow.
It remains unclear whether regulators would allow such modifications at scale.
In 2017, former LTFRB chairman Martin Delgra III said that achieving Euro-4 compliance is not just about replacing engines, adding that it is not a “holistic rehabilitation.”
A 2017 study by Clean Air Asia also noted that changing the engines is not advisable. The report said that Euro-4 technology is “significantly more complicated to be retrofitted to existing units,” which may result in costs and operational issues.
Asked about the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) current stance on this proposal, Secretary Giovanni Lopez told PCIJ that it is worth looking into.
“Give me some time to personally study this. But the swapping sounds sensible. I’m not a mechanical engineer though, so let me have a look into it,” Lopez said.
Lopez was designated acting transportation chief in September 2025. Prior to this, he held senior positions in the DOTr, overseeing finance and major infrastructure projects, and previously served as the head of the Land Transportation Office.
When the city warms
Baguio’s appeal is its cool air. Climate change is putting that appeal—and the city’s already strained lungs—under new pressure.
As temperatures rise globally, this dynamic is likely to intensify. Warmer conditions could deepen thermal inversions, where warm air above acts as a lid on cooler, pollution-laden air below.
In a city already sitting on a plateau surrounded by taller peaks that block horizontal dispersal, those inversions compound what the roads already produce.
As lowland temperatures rise, more people might seek the cool. More tourists could mean more vehicles on the roads.
But for drivers like Nathaniel Pepin, pine trees were a thing of the past: before the condominiums, the traffic, before tourists started coming in numbers the city was never built to hold.
Asked what he thinks should be done, he doesn’t mention standards, enforcement, or electric vehicles. He talks about keeping the engine clean and making sure the exhaust passes the smoke test. Things that are under his power to control.
“Parang mas maganda na lang na sa kondisyon na lang sasakyan bumawi. Para, at least, kahit kaunti, mabawasan ‘yong usok ng mga sasakyan,” Pepin said.
(It seems like it would be better if the vehicles were in good condition instead. So that, at least, even for a bit, smoke from the vehicles would be reduced.)
Reporting for this story was supported by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and is part of Following the Fumes: A Cross-Border Report on Under-Reported Air Pollution Stories in Asia.
What was our process in writing this story?
To produce this data story, the author used data from satellite-derived estimates and ground monitoring to quantify PM2.5 exposure in Baguio City, focusing on fine particulate matter (PM2.5) due to its associated health impacts.
To track Baguio City’s air quality over time, we used satellite-derived PM2.5 estimates from the Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group (ACAG) at Washington University in St. Louis to see a longer trend in air quality across the Philippines. Annual PM2.5 concentrations were available between 1998 and 2023. The approach was necessary due to gaps in publicly available ground-level data.
ACAG researchers note that these estimates are primarily intended for large-scale analysis. The annual data are presented as simple means within each grid, and while high-resolution datasets approximately 1-kilometer by 1-kilometer in the equator were used, they may not fully resolve fine-scale variations or “hotspots” because they rely on lower-resolution source data.
To process the data, NetCDF files were converted to raster format by adapting the R-based script written by the researchers. After conversion, average annual PM2.5 concentrations were calculated for each Philippine city in Google Earth Engine using indicative administrative boundary shapefiles from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, sourced from Philippine government agencies National Mapping and Resource Information Authority and the Philippine Statistics Authority.
To complement these estimates, the author acquired PM2.5 concentrations from the DENR-EMB CAR continuous air quality monitoring portal. All findings were benchmarked against the World Health Organization annual safety limit.
Finally, to assess health impacts, this report used data from the State of Global Air Report.
Data preparation and analyses were performed in Google Earth Engine, RStudio, Jupyter Notebook, and Google Sheets. The digital terrain model of Baguio was created using QGIS and Blender.