Not too long ago, riders usually had both the Uber and Grab apps on their mobile devices. While they were willing to pay a premium for convenience, they still wanted value for their money. Thus, the practice was to key in your destination and then find out which of the two offered a better rate.
This month, all that changed.
Uber is no longer around. Its Southeast Asian operations have been bought by Grab. And because Grab has gotten rid of the competition by buying it, its prices have been unconscionable of late. Passengers have been left with very few choices.
Now we hear that Grab has been charging P2 per minute to its riders beginning June last year. While some sectors slammed this practice as illegal, Grab insisted it could set its own fees and that the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board had been informed of this scheme. The LTFRB denied knowledge of this.
The head of Grab Philippines, Brian Cu, said the money actually went to the drivers, and wondered how they could refund it at all. This week, the LTFRB suspended the charging practice “pending extensive review and resolution,” and the company said it would comply.
While desperate to figure out how the LTFRB could be so blissfully unaware of a practice going on for months, the public is still waiting to feel the effects of the order.
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One could always take the bus, or the train, or a taxi. But hailing a taxi in itself is also an exercise in patience. Sometimes it’s a struggle for sanity.
Imagine standing on the street waiting for a cab, eager to cap a long day. An empty taxi comes along. But if you see the window on the side rolled down, be prepared. This is a driver who’s choosy.
The reasons vary—he will pick up somebody at a certain time, he will eat, he does not go in that direction, he doesn’t want to go outside the vicinity of where he is. Sometimes he actually scoffs at you when you tell him your destination, as if you were less of a person, worthy to be rejected. These days perhaps these cabbies know all too well that people are considering them again because of the surge in Grab prices. Some actually work up the nerve to ask how much the estimated price was, and then not-so-subtly point out that you are able to save a lot more riding with them.
Case in point. I was standing on Dela Rosa street one Monday night when I flagged down a cab. The driver slowed down but didn’t stop in front of me. He stopped in front of two Western-looking men. The men must have seen I had been there awhile, so they said I should go ahead. Good for them, I thought. When I sat down the driver was surprised to see a girl, not the men.
When I told him I was going to Quezon City, he shook his head vigorously. “This was why I didn’t stop in front of you,” he said with a scowl. “I’ll just be driving around Makati.” Wow, he had ESP! He knew where I was going even before talking to me!
When I alighted, visibly irked, the two foreigners asked me why. “Go on. Take him, he’s an a**hole,” I said. Later I regretted what I said. I should have also warned them that the driver might charge them excessively, and that they should be careful.
It was the seventh cab I flagged down that took me to my destination.
The feeling is in no way unique. There are plenty of similar episodes. I wonder if there was a way the riding public could be protected from this behavior. You know it is wrong to generalize, of course, and that there are many decent taxi drivers around. Still, how can you make the indecent ones shape up?
You can’t legislate it. You can’t require their operators to keep an eye on them 24/7. You can’t even complain to the government because the process might aggravate your experience. What, then, can you do?
Go to the next option. But I stopped taking the train when it crossed the line from “inconvenient” to “dangerous.” Good for me, I can make that choice. Good too, that up to a certain time of the day, a point-to-point bus service is available near my area. But what about the others who do not have the same options, and must choose between enduring these daily, unnecessary horrors and quitting their jobs?
It’s not asking much. People just want to be able to focus on their jobs so they could attain some measure of comfort in their lives. With the abominable state of public transportation here, though, going to the job is as difficult as, if not more difficult than, the job itself.