Saving the Uber lifestyle
Vice President Leni Robredo speaks before the students and faculty of St. Paul College in Pasig City on July 19, 2017, at the SUIT UP: Be Brave and Take Action event, organized by the St. Paul College Pasig (SPCP) High School Student Coordinating Team for their annual Homeroom Leadership Training. Leni Robredo/Released
Talk of changing lifestyles! The past two years have definitely changed the way we move around our cities. Reliable car service with predictable rates from Uber and Grab has made it possible for many people to go anywhere at any time, hassle-free. A dinner invitation in QC, the Fort or Makati is no longer a pain to accept when Uber can drive me there and take me safely back home in style.
Arriving at NAIA from a trip abroad, I no longer need to be picked up or line up for an airport taxi with an unreliable meter. Uber or Grab takes me home in a nice new vehicle at a pre-determined rate.
Being a senior, the 20-percent senior discount is already factored in the fare of every Uber ride I take. Jeepney drivers do not remove a peso from a senior’s fare — even if she’s old and bent and grey — unless she demands it. And I have never had a taxi driver subtract the required senior discount from my fare. But Uber technology has made this automatic. Grab would do well to follow suit.
I know an ex-pat who has no qualms about putting her teenage daughter in an Uber car for delivery to a friend’s house in Alabang. An Uber driver told me about a mother who depends on Uber to bring her young kids to school in the morning.
I like it that Uber is totally computerized and on-line. I can follow an Uber ride from the comfort of my home, so I know when the rider has reached his or her destination. Did you know that as riders rate the drivers with one to five stars, so are Uber riders rated by the drivers? A rare unpleasant incident between a rider and driver is duly noted so that the two will never again be put together on an Uber ride.
What’s not to love about Uber? And Grab? It’s the greatest invention since the cellphone. But if you’re a bureaucrat at the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, you probably have an ax to grind against this innovative transport service.
The LTFRB has been on the receiving end of brickbats from the riding public that has gotten used to the class, comfort, and reliability of Uber and Grab. And with good reason. Commuters have long been traumatized by crabby cab drivers with unkempt and stinky cars and fast meters that the LTFRB has allowed to terrorize commuters. But the LTFRB says these taxis are legal, with franchises, and not disgraceful colorums, like those shiny and reliable new vehicles of Uber and Grab driven by courteous chauffeurs.
Pending a review of policies such as accountability and pricing mechanisms covering Uber and Grab’s new-fangled transport network system, the LTFRB issued Memorandum Circular No. 2016-008 last year suspending the acceptance of applications for franchises of transport network vehicle services (TNVS).
Before the moratorium, only around 3,000 drivers had obtained the required franchises. A year later, the industry has grown along with the rising demand and there are over 50,000 drivers who are not registered. It has been a year since the MO was issued. Shouldn’t the LTFRB have finished reviewing those policies by now? Instead, last July 11, the LTFRB warned that it would begin apprehending colorum Grab and Uber cars starting tomorrow, July 26, and fining drivers P120,000 each. But it has not been processing applications for an entire year!
The backlash was immediate. The LTFRB is still reeling from the tsunami that hit it.
“The board and the government fully support the ride-sharing technology,” LTFRB chairman Atty. Martin B. Delgra III, a Davao lawyer, piously intoned. “What we don’t want is the transport network companies (TNCs) violating the law rampantly and openly to the prejudice of the [drivers].” And to Grab and Uber: “Don’t turn the commuters against us, because it is a mess that you [TNCs] created.”
LTFRB board member, Atty. Aileen Lizada, also from Davao, chimed in that it is the TNCs that should draw flak for failing to do their jobs and putting their drivers at risk of being classified as colorum operators.
Sorry, Atty. Delgra and Ms. Lizada, you will not win this argument. To the riding public, this issue is very personal. We will be unforgiving.
Instead of insisting on bureaucratic procedures that hold back the new technology, shouldn’t you be looking for ways to simplify and fast-track procedures with the immediate needs of the riding public in mind? This issue is, after all, a matter of public interest, and to use your own words, imbued with the safety and welfare of the riding public.
As Bob Dylan wrote in his prophetic song, “Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand/ For the times they are a-changing.” And didn’t the mayor from Davao say he wants change?
The news last Thursday was that the LTFRB finally met with Grab and Uber, and both sides agreed to resolve the impasse. The July 26 date set by LTFRB to start apprehending colorum Uber and Grab drivers has been lifted — for now.
We, the riding public, expect everyone concerned — LTFRB and Grab and Uber — to set their egos aside, act like responsible adults, and resolve this issue expeditiously, bearing in mind the need for immediate solutions to the transport crisis, and the welfare and safety of commuters. And, not to forget, protection for the livelihood of Grab and Uber drivers.
