ANGELES CITY – To celebrate its one year of operations in this city, Grab Philippines has opened its new offi ce at the entertainment and business district in Barangay Balibago here on Thursday. Grab Philippines Country Head Brian Cu said his company will also open a booth at the arrival lounge of the Clark International Airport (CIA) for the benefi t of the increasing arrivals of airline passengers.
“We are just doing some fi ne tuning with the booth,” he said.
He said in line with this, he expressed his gratitude to Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) officer-in-charge Alex Cauguiran for Grab’s airport booth as well as City Administrator Dennis Pamintuan for their newly-opened office located at the 2nd floor of IBG Building along Mon Tang Avenue in the said village.
Cu said he is hoping that the city government would coordinate more closely with Grab in terms of traffic condition for the benefit of the riding public. He said hundreds of Grab cars and tricycles are now operating in the city but unfortunately we cannot expand because of the Land Transportation Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB) moratorium, he said.
The LTFRB has recently imposed a moratorium on franchise applications for transportation network vehicle services (TNVS) which has put on hold Grab’s new applications. Once the suspension is lifted, potential drivers can apply in this office, he said.
Cu added that the new office will also be used for training new drivers.
Nothing is perfect but we are training Grab drivers to be more courteous, he said. Cu said Grab disciplines drivers by suspending them or cancelling their applications. Vice Mayor Brian Matthew Nepomuceno, who led the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Grab office, described the entry of Grab in the city as very timely.
“The mayor has recently attended a summit in Taiwan which has to do with EcoMobility,” he said.
EcoMobility aims to bring the sustainable urban mobility debate to the global level, coupled with the local context of implementation.
Nepomuceno said, “One of the thrust of the summit which has been adopted by our mayor is that we want the roads be returned to the citizens.”
The vice mayor said “for the longest time, our mentality or thinking is always the streets are for cars and people should avoid cars, avoid walking on the streets.”
But globally, in the cities around the world, he said that mindset is changing.
“Rather they now want to give back the streets to the people. They want cyclists to use the streets, pedestrians to use the streets which can also be used for different activities like the Tigtigan, Terakan Keng Dalan or TTKD (music and dancing on the street),” he said.
“That is the thrust of the cities worldwide and the city of Angeles,” Nepomuceno said.
“The major step in order to do that is to establish a mass transport system that is reliable fast and also very credible and Grab is something the city has achieved.It’s one of the ways we will be able to achieve a transport system that is reliable and also a transport system that all classes of citizens would like to use,” he added.
“With that, we are glad that Grab is here in Angeles as we also look forward to the bike sharing system in the future,” he said.
Cu said the future of Pampanga is bright. He remarked that Grab is well over its projected market in this city.
“It’s what you call a good product market fit. We believe that Angeles will be an ideal place for Grab car and hopefully other mobility solutions that we can give to the citizens.”
Other guests include City Administrator Dennis Pamintuan and CIAC Legal Services Head Atty. Cynthia Dungca.
