Deliver us from voiders
Among the hottest businesses right now is delivery service but unless something is done to protect them, riders are sometimes left out in the cold.
The delivery business has even become a savior for jobless tricycle drivers in Manila. Some 500 trikers got hired as food delivery riders through an agreement forged by the Manila City Hall and foodpanda in May.
The project dubbed PandaTODA was also replicated in Pasig, Quezon City and Bacoor, Cavite so trikers there who lost their livelihood from the enhanced community quarantine may work and earn again.
With thousands of jeepney drivers in Metro Manila also banned from working to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a similar employment program was hatched this time between the Quezon City government and courier provider Lalamove.
Under the project, an initial 36 idled jeepney drivers will become LalaJeep couriers from 15 June to July while the government is not yet allowing public utility jeepneys to serve commuters as a safety precaution.
The LalaJeep drivers will deliver around Quezon City or Luzon food, furniture, hardware supplies and other bulky stuff that may be impossible for Lalamove’s delivery riders to handle. The Lalamove delivery booking app will also be used by LalaJeep drivers to serve customers.
Meanwhile, actor Dingdong Dantes is also venturing into the app-based delivery service business. In a “Fireside” live chat Thursday, he said the Ding Dong App will soon be launched as part of his and wife Marian Rivera’s home-based flower delivery business.
Dingdong said he and some friends formed the company Doorbell Technologies that will operate the business after realizing the need for efficient and safe delivery riders to bring their homearranged flowers to customers.
Doorbell Technologies will also employ jobless workers from the entertainment industry by hiring them as Ding Dong delivery riders.
Once on the road, PandaTODA, LalaJeep and Ding Dong riders are going to face the challenge posed by pranksters who will book orders and then cancel it when the rider already purchased the goods to be delivered. A proposed law penalizing such customers would be helpful.
Ako Bicol Rep. Alfredo Garbin Jr. has filed House Bill 6958 titled “Food and Grocery Delivery Services Protection Act” that bans cancellation of booked orders that have already been purchased by the rider and are already in transit. Offenders would be fined and jailed for at least six months to a maximum of 12 years.
Delivery riders also face another menace: customers who cancel deliveries because the goods are damaged. It happened to Valenzuela City reseller Prince Salvador who bought two mountain bikes worth P12,000 for a customer in San Mateo, Rizal.
Salvador carried the bikes on his motorcycle all the way to San Mateo only to be rejected by the customer who canceled the order because the bikes had scratches. Despite his explanation that the goods could not be avoided getting scratched along the way, the customer did not budge.
The delivery rider ended up losing his own money.