Manila Bulletin

ON 2 WHEELS OF CONVENIENC­E

- By PINKY CONCHA COLMENARES

L ife goes on despite the traffic.

There’s a new way of dining out — you have your food delivered.

There’s an efficient way for small entreprene­urs to get their products to their buyers — they call a mover service.

There’s a hassle-free way to shop — you order online and a courier brings your stuff to your address. Or there’s a delivery service you can ask to shop for you — even from the wet market, so a friend says.

There’s another way to get around the Metro — you book for an Angkas ride through your phone. We’ve heard countless stories of employees booking the app and getting to their appointmen­ts on time. One of our police reporters uses the service to get to a far-away police sub-station.

Because it’s Christmas season, there’s a new form of Santa’s elves delivering gifts — the courier service on motorcycle­s of online shopping sites. Their presence in front of a gate

at odd hours — with oddly-shaped packages strapped at the backs of their motorcycle­s — states their serious determinat­ion to get a gift to someone.

For thousands of people, the new ways to get going amid the thick traffic has created a dependable livelihood that is paying the basic house bills, sending kids to school, and meeting the amortizati­ons for another motorcycle or a house. Read about their stories in this issue.

Clearly, the motorcycle­s — once second-class road citizens — have saved the day for thousands of people who were either stuck in lowpaying jobs, or were jobless.

In this issue of Sunday Bulletin, we feature the various businesses that are booming because of the motorcycle delivery service — and the people whose lives changed because of their new jobs.

We start from the story of Angkas, the motorcycle ride-hailing app that has become a dependable mode of transporta­tion, not just an alternativ­e way to get from points A to B. There are some 20,000 riders in four cities in the Philippine­s offering this service. And more than a million Angkas apps have been downloaded!

Thousands of people now have the convenienc­e of dining at home or in the office — without crawling through traffic and parking lots — because of the booming food delivery service that has expanded from the restaurant’s exclusive delivery fleet to a service delivering food from various restaurant­s you can pick.

Once, it was just a fancy thought to have your groceries purchased and delivered by a service. That’s a real service today that’s offered by Honestbee.

I discovered that there are now neighborho­od delivery services that you can call to shop at stores around the area — and you pay them COD! My friend said you can even order from the wet market.

There’s no stopping the spirit of enterprise in the Pinoy. Expect more services from the motorcycle riders who can do almost everything to bring convenienc­e to our lives — despite the traffic!

 ??  ?? CONVENIENC­E – Riders pause at the intersecti­on, many of them on the way to deliver packages, food, groceries, or even a passenger to a destinatio­n, boosting the businesses that now use motorcycle­s as a main transporta­tion mode. (Alvin Kasiban)
CONVENIENC­E – Riders pause at the intersecti­on, many of them on the way to deliver packages, food, groceries, or even a passenger to a destinatio­n, boosting the businesses that now use motorcycle­s as a main transporta­tion mode. (Alvin Kasiban)

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