Imagine a hot day outdoors. You just had a lunch-out with office friends in the mall and you are on your way back to the office. To get a cab, you have to fall in line. Now again, imagine it to be a really hot, humid day (not so hard to do in tropical Manila). Trickles of sweat start to form on the sides of your forehead and under your shirt, it’s a waterfall. Then your turn to take the cab comes. The feeling of air-conditioning on your skin excites you so you literally throw yourself into the car. And then—SLAM!—body odor! If it weren’t for courtesy and the long line we had to endure to get a ride, I’d be out of that smelly hole in a snap. The courtesy flag shouldn’t even be raised because a smelly cab is an outright disrespect and violation of my right to breathe!

Needless to say, the issue is hygiene. Most cab drivers here in Manila take this for granted. They go on their daily trips looking grungy and unpresentable. I have in many occasions rejected a cab on account of how the driver looks like. Well, not so much that they should look cute and young and hot (gee, who could resist the chance that next cabbie will be like that?) but simply that they should look clean and decent enough. I wonder if there are rules governing hygiene of taxi cab drivers and their cars per se here in the country. I wonder what happened to the announcement by MMDA’s Bayani Fernando that public utility vehicle drivers with body odor issues will be admonished.

United Kingdom. In Bournemouth, 100 taxi drivers got suspended for not taking required courses on personal hygiene and conflict management.
China. As part of the Olympics preparation, Beijing is banning smelly cabs.
UAE. Cab drivers of a taxi-operating company trains new taxi drivers not just on emirate routes, also on grooming and personal hygiene.
Hygiene is of course a personal decision that we hope these taxi drivers naturally get into their daily system of activities. It’s something they should’ve grown themselves with in the first place. It’s ridiculous how some of them actually attribute the cause of the problem to our country’s predominantly hot climate. Nice try, manongs! And the following suggestions are for you, if you happen to come across this page that is:
Take a bath. I mean, seriously, don’t be a cat and dip yourselves in some body of water. Lather on with some soap, rinse, dry up with a clean towel, get into a clean uniform and you’re prepped. How good and fresh does it feel? You will see how ten minutes can make a big difference throughout your day, not to mention your passenger’s day.
Wash the uniform. And since the uniform was mentioned, make sure to wash it everyday if you only have one set. You will only need to wash every other day if you have two sets, and so on. If you’re working long hours, wash it before you go to sleep with some detergent. Two minutes of scrubbing should be fine. Hang it. Then it should be dry the next morning. Less than ten minutes before you crash your hardworking ass on the bed.
Use a deodorant. Get a Rexona or use “tawas”, it works and it’s cheap. It’s most important if your cab’s airconditioning system is not well-functioning (like most old cabs in the metro). So if your car fails to help you with your body odor, go help yourself!
Look good, look clean. Clean body, clean uniform, dry armpits. Put them all together and try to look the best you can. You’re in a service industry. You deal and meet people everyday. Your job does not start and end in taking people from one place to another; your job also involves making that ride as hassle-free and as smooth as possible. If you’re going to take me as short a ride as from Paseo de Roxas to Makati Avenue and you reek of rotten vinegar, I wouldn’t spare even a peso.
I was inspired to write about this because I’ve encountered such cabs twice. And it’s unbearable. I was casually covering my nose with with my office ID or my finger just so I won’t appear rude. When we finally get to the front of the building lobby, everybody would be trying to get out of the car first, gasping for precious and fresh air. Then later, everybody will be laughing. But it’s not funny.

http://sublunari.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/on-taxi-driver-hygiene/