Grab: Legal aid awaits drivers ‘wrongly apprehended’

Members of the TNVS community urge their members to join them in a transport holiday on Monday. PHOTO/Jam Sta Rosa, INQUIRER.NET

RIDE-hailing firm Grab on July 5 said it would provide legal assistance to its drivers who have complete documents but were “wrongly apprehended” by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).

The company called on drivers to report their cases through its hotline or by visiting its Quezon City office.

Grab on the same day also said it would offer rewards to its drivers who will not participate in the “transport holiday” set today, July 8.

“To help support this commitment, Grab offers #TuloyPasada Reward to driver-partners who will continue to service the commuters on July 8, 2019, from 6 a.m. up until 6 p.m.,” a report published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer on July 5 quoted Grab spokesperson Nicka Hosaka as saying in a statement.

#TuloyPasada Reward is apparently an incentive program Grab will issue to its drivers.

On July 3 a group of transport network vehicle services (TNVS) drivers and labor group Defend Job Philippines said in an advisory they intend to temporarily stop operations and go offline from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on July 8.

The groups said the transport holiday is a protest against the LTFRB’s “pahirap policies” (or policies that make conducting business difficult) which include supposed inconsistencies in its processing of registrations and applications for TNVS. The groups are also protesting what they said are the LTFRB’s complicated requirements, slow processing and releasing of provisional authority and Certificate of Public Convenience, the Inquirer said in a separate report.

Grab had earlier reminded its drivers of their “commitment to service the Filipino commuting public.”

It will also hold a “TNVS Caravan” from July 15 to 19 to “help prospective driver-partners prepare their TNVS applications,” according to the Inquirer report, which added Grab had welcomed the LTFRB’s “openness” for a dialogue, hoping this would “swiftly ease this long-standing issue” concerning the TNVS drivers and operators, as well as commuters.

The LTFRB had invited TNVS drivers and operators to a dialogue on July 9 to “address concerns on the process of accreditation and the necessity of such regulations and requirements.”

A separate report published by the Inquirer on July 5 quoted LTFRB chairman Martin Delgra III as telling drivers planning to join today’s transport holiday to “not hold the riding public hostage, but instead air out concerns through dialogue.”

“[W]e urge them to bring their legitimate concerns to LTFRB, in dialogue, so that the board can address them and not hold the riding public hostage by their planned disruptive action,” the Inquirer report quoted Delgra.