House panel seeks to exclude Move it, Grab from motorcycle-taxi pilot study

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The House Committee on Metro Manila Development has recommended the exclusion of Grab-Move It (a recent Grab acquisition) from a pilot study on motorcycle-taxi operations being conducted by a technical working group for reference in drafting a bill on the service.

The committee cited several issues raised against Grab-Move It to warrant exclusion.

Manila Rep. Rolando Valeriano already submitted the findings of the committee, which he chairs, to House Speaker Martin Romualdez last Sept. 5, which included that recommendation.

The committee also called for a new law to be drafted to govern the operations of transport network vehicle services (TNVS) and motorcycle-tax (MC Taxi) operations.

Key findings

According to a statement issued on Monday, among the key findings of the committee were that Grab continued to remain the single biggest player in the TNVS industry since the exit of Uber in 2018 and that it reportedly made a “backdoor entry” into the MC Taxi industry as it initially failed to pass the screening that the technical working group did in 2019.

The statement added that “it was glaring in the report Grab has repeatedly tried to circumvent the findings of the Philippine Competition Commission.”

The PCC found that Grab failed to pay the requisite fines amounting to more than P25 million imposed on it as a result of overpricing.

The PCC issued a second and then a third order, and yet Grab reportedly failed to observe its price monitoring commitments.

“This resulted in another round of fines for submitting inaccurate and misleading information in compliance reports related to the refund orders,” the committee statement said.

The committee report also pointed to the “disregard of Grab” for the sanctity of the MC Taxi pilot study, for which it initially failed to quality. So Grab, the report said, “ended up taking over the operations of one of the accredited MC Taxi operators, Move It.”

“The initial planned partnership between Grab and Move It was disallowed unanimously by members of the MC Technical Working Group in 2021 through a status quo order. And yet in 2022, Move It relinquished operations to Grab through a merger and acquisition deal,” the committee media statement said.

So the report urged the technical working group to consider all these issues raised against Grab, including those raised during the committee hearings. This would help determine if Grab is really the “de facto fourth player in the study.”

Other recommendations

Valeriano and his committee further recommended the following actions:

• Draft a new law to regulate both TNVS and MC Taxi operations, which are currently governed only by executive issuances.

• Meanwhile, in lieu of existing law, the ongoing pilot program on MC Taxis of the Department of Transportation must be enhanced to include possible government functions to regulate operations beyond safety issues.

• Take a closer look at the pilot study being undertaken to ensure that the proper laws and their implementing rules and regulations could be legislated quickly.

• The Department of Trade and Industry should review the pricing system of the various services available so it can make policies to ensure prices will be fair and equitable to consumers.