- The practice covers PWD, senior citizen, and student discounts.
- Drivers shoulder up to 80% of these discounts.
- Drivers are accused of cancelling trips of PWDs to avoid granting discounts.
- LTFRB vowed to issue a new memo directing transport network companies and operators to shoulder the discount.
- LTFRB said it is also “inclined” to suspend erring companies and have them refund costs to drivers
Grab was the first to admit in a Senate hearing on Dec. 10 that their drivers were shouldering a bigger portion of the 20% fare discounts for persons with disabilities (PWDs), senior citizens and students.
And then in a hearing by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) on Jan. 8, representatives from two other transport network companies (TNCs) – JoyRide and GET Express – disclosed that they were off-loading the discounts to their partner-drivers.
Nine other TNCs claimed they assumed 100% of the fare discounts as mandated by law.
It made sense why some drivers seemed hostile when accepting rides from discount-holder passengers like PWDs while others took longer time to pick up bookers that eventually led to cancellations, according to passengers who spoke with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
The disclosures prompted transport leader Jun De Leon to ask Grab to refund their drivers two days later.
“If the evidence warrants, we will issue them the appropriate suspension of their franchise,” LTFRB chair Teofilo Guadiz III warned at the hearing, reminding the TNCs about their responsibility to shoulder the discounts under memorandum circular 2015-016-A.
At another hearing by the Senate committee on public services last Jan. 14, Guadiz said that the LTFRB would issue a circular in February mandating all TNC operators and app owners to assume 100% of the discounts.
“We are now drafting a memorandum circular, which will be implemented this February, wherein all of the discounts will now be shouldered by the TNC operator and by the owner of the app,” he said.
“Definitely, the driver should not be included in the equation. The driver should not shoulder anything.’’
Drivers from JoyRide are charged for as much as 80% of the discount per ride, PCIJ discovered.
The counsel for the ride-hailing company defended the scheme at the LTFRB hearing, arguing that the agency’s memorandum does not specify how much the TNC should cover.
“(A)ll discounts mandated by law, policies, rules and regulations shall be shouldered by the TNC,” the memorandum states.
Maximo Diego III, counsel for Grab, confirmed that their drivers’ earnings are reduced by the discounts and company commissions that range from 20-25%.
“Since Grab started in the Philippines, Grab shouldered the 100% discount. In June 2024, there is now a sharing arrangement between Grab and the TNVS (Transportation Network Vehicle Service). 60% is shouldered by the TNVS, while the 40% is shouldered by Grab,” he said.
It was in June 2024 when drivers began bearing 64% of the discount, according to data from Grab.
The transport group Laban Transport Network Vehicle Service, which is headed by De Leon, insisted that Grab has been passing on to its drivers the entire fare discount for students and senior citizens and half of the fare discount for PWDs since March 2024.
Grab, for its part, argued that “the TNVS driver or operator, being the public utility vehicle that provides the transportation service, are the ones mandated by law to provide the discounts,” as shown in their statement. They were citing this LTFRB memo as the basis.
GET Express, a food delivery platform and courier service, has a 50-50 sharing arrangement with its riders.
The remaining nine companies declared that they are shouldering 100% of the discounts. However, epickmeup plans to offload 50% of the discount to its drivers soon.
Seven more accredited TNCs skipped the LTFRB hearing.
At the Jan. 14 hearing by the Senate public services committee, Guadiz said that LTFRB was “inclined” to suspend erring TNCs and have them refund collected discounts back to the drivers.
“It goes without saying (…) the first offense is suspension… But on the second offense, we will probably already revoke the franchise,” Guadiz told committee chair Sen. Raffy Tulfo. “We are inclined to follow your recommendation that there should be a refund.”
Grab’s policy
At the Senate hearing on Dec. 10, Grab driver-operator Ninoy Mopas said that drivers have been shouldering the discount since early 2024, a disclosure that sparked an online outrage among users of the country’s dominant ride-hailing app.
But the PCIJ discovered that Grab’s discount sharing began much earlier in July 2023, with the driver and the TNC each covering 50%. This was also the time when promo codes given to discount holders were scrapped and the 20% discount was automatically deducted from Grab fares.
In June 2024 drivers began shouldering 64% of the discount, according to Grab’s timeline.
The company explained that they initially shouldered the discount because they were still developing a verification system that could “protect the TNVS driver or operator from potential fraud.”
“When Grab launched in the Philippines in 2013, it was aware of the senior citizen and PWD discounts… However, due to the lack of technology to verify if a user was indeed a senior citizen or PWD, Grab shouldered 100% of these discounts,” they said.
When Grab incorporated that system in July 2023, they “informed the TNVS driver or operator that the 20% senior citizens and PWD discounts would now be applied to the actual fare. To ease the impact, Grab agreed to initially shoulder 50% of the discount,” they elaborated.
In the December hearing, though, Grab’s head of public affairs Gregorio Ramon Tingson pointed to another reason. He said that the company only covered the discount to help drivers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Ang… pag-shoulder ng discounts ay ginawa pong polisiya ng Grab dahil po sa pandemiya para makatulong sa mga driver… In-extend po natin hangga’t kaya,” he said.
(“Grab shouldered the discounts to help drivers during the pandemic… We extended it as much as we can.”)
After attending both hearings, De Leon expressed his dismay in a live video: “Niloloko po tayo ng TNC na ‘to… Naninindigan tayo na dapat ibalik ng Grab Philippines, (at) kung sinumang TNC pa ang nagpakarga ng student, senior citizen, at PWD discount sa drivers, ibalik ang perang yan sa mga drivers.”
(“We are being fooled by this TNC… We stand firm that Grab Philippines and other TNCs who are offloading the student, senior citizen, and PWD discount to drivers to refund that money to them.)
PWD-driver ‘friction’
Grab’s July 2023 system change did not only affect drivers’ earnings. It has also taken a toll on PWD riders who felt that they had to prove their disability to drivers every time they booked a ride.
“When the update happened… I realized that drivers were more stringent about it… I had a lot of microaggressions from drivers,” Joven Santiago, a Grab PWD discount holder, told PCIJ in a mix of Filipino and English.
He felt that many drivers became “rude” to him and started questioning whether his PWD ID was real.
“Parang ang nangyari sa ‘min may friction between the customers and the driver … Dumaan naman kami sa registration sa LGUs (local government units) namin, and then there’s certification sa doctors. There was a process of registration in Grab… Why do we then have to prove it to the drivers?” he said.
(“It caused friction between the customers and driver… We went through the our LGU’s registration, and then there’s the certification of the doctors.”)
Santiago, who has non-visible disabilities, stopped availing his discount altogether because he found it exhausting to “defend” himself.
“I don’t use it anymore ‘cause… number one, I won’t have to defend myself daily that I’m actually a PWD. And then second, if Grab is actually taking it from the earnings of the driver, it’s really unfair,” he said.
For Trina Isorena, another PWD discount holder, the problem had to do with longer-than-usual waiting times and drivers ignoring her calls that often push her to cancel booked rides. She felt that drivers are giving her the “silent treatment” upon learning she is a discount holder.
“Magbu-book ako.. Tapos nagfa-fluctuate kasi (yung waiting time). Pero ang nangyayari, nakikita ko hindi na gumagalaw yung car. So mine-message ko, ‘Nasaan na po kayo?’” she recounted one instance.
(“I book… and then the waiting time would fluctuate. But what happens is that the car doesn’t move. So I ask them, ‘Where are you?’”)
“Yung iba sumasagot, ‘Ma’am ma-traffic lang kasi.’‘Ma’am yung system namin may problems.’ Okay yun. Meron talaga na makikita mo ang tagal-tagal na nito and ikaw na lang ang magka-cancel kasi hindi sila sumasagot e,” she said.
(“Others answer, ‘Ma’am, it’s the traffic.’‘Ma’am, the system has problems.’ That’s fine. There are those who take a long time to arrive and so you’re forced to cancel because they don’t return my calls.”)
She said that this had happened when the promo code was still in place — but only rarely.
De Leon, a former Grab driver and now an operator, confirmed that some drivers really force discount holder-passengers to cancel.
“Totoo yun… Sa kagustuhan man naming serbisyuhan yung mga PWDs, students at saka senior citizens, nalulungkot din kami, pumipikit na lang din kami. Kaya lang kapag tinanggap namin, mauuwi sa pagkalugi. Kawawa naman yun pamilya ng bawat driver,” he told PCIJ.
(“That’s true… As much as we want to serve PWDs, students and senior citizens, we’re also sad. We just close our eyes. But if we accept the discounted rides, we go home with less income. Our families suffer.”)
Isorena, who avails of Grab’s services multiple times a week, said that the discount is important for her. “Meron ka ring iisipin na gamot.. So it matters that there’s that discount kasi yun naman yung intention din talaga ng batas — na tulungan (ka) dahil you pay extra for the things that make your disability less of a disability,” she said.
(“You have to think of your medication… So the discount matters because that’s really the intention of the law — to help you because you pay extra for the things that make your disability less of a disability.”
She urged the government to “catch up with its implementation” of the Republic Act No. 10754 which mandates discounts for PWDs like her. Discounts for students and senior citizens are also mandated by law.
As for Santiago, he hoped that Grab would rethink their policy: “Grab is only providing the platform to these drivers, but the one that is doing the hard work for them are actually the drivers… It leads to the driver and (discount holders having a friction)… I’m insisting on my privileges, you’re insisting on your economic gain.”
“In the grander scheme of things, they’re taking money from thousands of drivers who are working for them to have a profit,” he said. — PCIJ.org