Make Grab explain charges before it joins bike-taxis

Marcos Jr.’s admin need not rely on Grab Holdings to create half-a-million jobs. It can stir work just by opening ride-hailing to competitors.

Competition offers free choice of Transport Network Vehicle Services. Cheaper, safer rides will vitalize commuting. Monopoly is curbed. Foreign control of public utilities, media and retail is prevented.

Anthony Tan, Malaysian cofounder-CEO of Singapore-registered Grab, dazzled officials in a recent call on the President. His business expansion supposedly will generate 500,000 jobs.

At once, regulators granted Grab additional 100,000 slots for driver-delivery subcontractors.

TNVS firms covet such slots. Those dictate which of them will profit. Tan had thrown a banquet for Marcos Jr.’s 75-strong delegation to Davos, Switzerland mid-January.

Advocacy group Digital Pinoys assails the favoritism. The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board already has allocated to Grab most of the 60,000 slots nationwide since 2013. The 100,000 more “reek of abuse of dominance and would only lead to monopoly,” gripes national campaigner Ronald Gustilo. “Government should uphold fair competition in allocating TNVS franchises.”

LTFRB was mum on new slots for Grab’s four- and two-wheel rivals. Apps, marketing and capital of JoyRide, Angkas, TokTok, Avis PH, ePickMeUp, Owto can’t match Grab’s. Grab in 2017 gobbled up Uber-Asia. Indonesian GoJek, Asia’s largest, remains locked out due to foreign ownership, an issue that Grab sidesteps.

The Constitution limits transport utilities to Filipinos. Too, online media, advertising and retailing into which Grab Delivery has entered.

Grab faces overcharging complaints at LTFRB. “Surge rates” are arbitrary and unauthorized, says Lawyers for Commuters Safety and Protection president Ariel Inton.

Aside from P45 sedan booking fee, Grab imposes P2 per minute plus P15 per kilometer, then doubles these during traffic. But those rush hours can be any time of day or night based on Grab’s secret algorithm, “thus subject to abuse,” says ex-LTFRB commissioner Inton.

Grab also collects P85 base fare for rides less than four kilometers to, it says, “discourage short trips”. Discriminatory, Inton rails.

Driver-delivery “partners” also have a beef. Grab upped its 14-percent commission from them to 17-22 percent, Laban TNVS president Jun de Leon rants to LTFRB. Grab contends that partners themselves drew up the new commissions as performance bonus scheme.

But Senator Grace Poe says Grab’s commission increase reduces drivers’ take-home income: “Instead of eating into their earnings, they should get more in terms of social protection and benefits.”

Grab is entering the motorcycle-taxi line through the backdoor. A Congress technical working group in 2019 allowed three two-wheel participants to aid legislation. Grab opted out last minute, leaving JoyRide, Angkas and MoveIt (We Load Transcargo) for dry-runs.

Months later MoveIt and Grab combined to use the latter’s app. Separating them, the TWG for fairness ordered MoveIt to run on its own.

In August 2022 Grab told the Securities and Exchange Commission it had acquired 99.8 percent of MoveIt. Yet it claimed they will operate separately.

The National Public Transport Coalition, Arangkada Riders Alliance, tricycle operators and drivers’ associations and consumerists were incredulous. “Why would anyone buy a company, then just relinquish control over it?” they asked.

Falling below the P1-billion threshold, the acquisition precluded automatic Philippine Competition Commission review. But in a House inquiry, Rep. Stella Quimbo, an ex-PCC commissioner, called for scrutiny since Grab has more than 50 percent industry share.

Congress is awaiting the TWG final report. After which, it will enact ride-hailing regulations proposed by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian and issue franchises. Legislators have authority to reallocate the 100,000 driver-deliverymen slots that LTFRB gave Grab.

*      *      *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8 to 10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM).

Follow me on Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/Jarius-Bondoc