93% of McDonald's stores in PH now operational post-ECQ

Quick service restaurant giant McDonald's Philippines said that with the easing of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in the country, 93 percent of its stores are now operational, which is higher compared to 50 percent at the beginning of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) placed over different parts of the country starting March.

Most of the food chain’s branches also recently resumed their dine-in services after having no choice but to only operate through delivery and drive-thru services, McDonald’s Philippines Managing Director Margot B. Torres said in a virtual press conference on Tuesday.

Because of this, McDonald’s Philippines Chief Executive Officer Kenneth S. Yang expects the company’s sales to eventually pick up.

“During this period, we had to do a lot of adjustments to make sure we maintained our revenue and sales,” Yang said.

“When the crisis hit, we did delivery and drive-thru. As we continue, we should see our sales improving now that we have dinein services. We should be able to exploit all our existing channels,” he added.

Without providing specific figures, Torres said McDonald’s sales from its food delivery business “grew three times” compared to pre-COVID-19 period.

“The preference of our customers right now is still delivery and drive-thru. We still don’t know how much is willing to dine-in,” she added.

Overall, Yang is seeing a slowdown on store openings in terms of expansion due to the persistence of COVID-19 pandemic.

“With this crisis, we had to adjust,” Yang said. “But we will continue to open around 15 stores, significantly less than what we planned”.

In 2019, McDonald’s opened 58 new stores across the country such as Camarines Sur, El Nido, Coron, Mangatarem in Pangasinan, Digos in Davao del Sur, Mati in Davao Oriental, Lagao in General Santos, Silay and Cadiz in Negros Occidental, Danao in Cebu and Caibaan in Tacloban.

Right now, the company has 618 branches nationwide.

Last year, the company allotted P3 billion in capital expenditure, which was spent mostly on improving its customer experience.

Torres said that moving forward, McDonald’s Philippines will be following a business continuity planning framework that the company has drafted during the first few weeks of ECQ and already began implementing.

The framework consists of four stages, including ‘now’, ‘near-term’, ‘mid-term’, and ‘long-term’.

Now involves the company’s immediate response to the pandemic such as the additional investment poured into its COVID-19 safety measures as well as the maximization of its existing service channels.

The near-term plan or the recovery phase, which will span throughout the second half of this year, will see the firm’s efforts to stabilize its operations amid the foreseen recession.

During the rebound phase or the midterm plan, the company expects a recovery in demand by 2021 and should therefore be able to cater to this, with some “new normal” adjustments in its operations.

It has been almost 29 years since the Local Government Code was passed. Pained by how the concentration of powers and authority on the central government led to abuses and corruption, powers and resources were transferred to local governments. Believing that those in the trenches can deliver services more efficiently, local governments were promised to be in- charge of basic health, social welfare, tourism, school building construction, among other things. And all for good reasons. Local governments do not just understand the problems of their communities. They experience them and, if they have a good conscience, they feel accountable in solving these problems. But today, devolution remains a promise. Central government is deeply in control of decisionmaking and local governments continue to be sidelined. They are not integral to planning and are merely expected to implement the decisions and policies of the central government without genuine consultation. Their initiatives and innovations are stifled. Mayor Vico’s use of tricycles to bring patients and health workers to hospitals is a case in point.

It does not help any that media focus on their mistakes and inefficiency, like when a barangay captain bungles on the distribution of the SAP or violates quarantine rules. But cases of their excellence and outstanding work used to ignored, and at best, only featured in local news. Thanks to the young Mayors like Mayor Vico, Mayor Rex and Mayor Moreno, the public is getting to know them more. I keep reassuring my friends