For a very long time Baguio City has not been the most friendly environment for motorcycles. They're not allowed to pass through Session Road except after 7:00 p.m. Whenever the police set up roadside checkpoints to enforce a night curfew, cars are generally waved through but for some reason all motorcycles are always flagged down for inspection.
What's to inspect in a vehicle that has no roof, doors, hood or trunk? The usual explanation is, to serve as a deterrent in the wake of the increased frequency of crimes committed by perpetrators "riding-in-tandem" on motorcycles. This makes no sense at all.
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| Two large SBARRO pizza's each one the size of a laundry basin? No problem, Baguio's "pizza cowboys" will stack 'em, rack 'em, tie them down and deliver them to your front door steaming hot. |
In a common scenario when a car is parked illegally, only its license plate is detached and confiscated. In the worst scenario involving a motorcycle, the whole thing is hauled off into the back of a paddy wagon and impounded at the police yard.
Until just recently, there were no exclusive parking zones for motorcycles. Motorcycle theft was rampant and because these little machines were easy to take apart, one's chances of recovering a stolen motorcycle before it vanished in a chop-shop is close to zero. On the other hand, if you choose to park it in the safety of a popular shopping mall's guarded indoor carpark, the parking rate is the same as for a full-sized SUV despite the lopsided difference in tonnage, rationale unknown.
These are only a handful of the many annoyances of owning a motorcycle in Baguio City. Add to this the finger-numbing experience of riding an open-type of vehicle in the city's nippy climate and you can understand why anybody who rides them must be totally enamored with the thing.
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| Serving in the season of COVID, these intrepid motorcycle riders are strict compliers with safety protocols too. Fresh back from a successful delivery one of them gets his temperature taken before reloading for his next delivery. |
Enter Coronavirus pandemic. When the first round of Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) went into effect back in March, all public transportation ground to a halt. Suddenly, motorcycles were the only viable alternative transportation especially for those who had no choice but to go out and about. The authorities forbade travelling in closed vehicles except in severely reduced capacities. This made motorcycles--the only transportation without passenger containment--the logical solution to moving law enforcement, medical first responders and other frontliners around.
Soon it became apparent that if you would only deputize a small motley crew of motorcycle riders to ferry materials around, then the circulation and distribution of all basic goods is essentially restored even with the general population quarantined at home.
At first it only involved the obvious help already available--pizza delivery boys, mail or package couriers and such. Then it became obvious that food being the quintessential, indeed most existential need had to be the first subject of massive, sustained and repetitive distribution.
Two companies had only recently set up operations in Baguio to test the market for call-up door-to-door food delivery, Grab Food and Food Panda. After a touch-and-go and shaky opening season pre-COVID, both exploded in an overnight success. The surge in phoned-in food orders swelled in such volume those two companies were no longer bringing snacks to the doorsteps . They were practically engaged in disaster-proportion food relief operations more efficiently than even the government could muster. Who would have thought?
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| No one disputes the City government's antagonistic policy towards motorcycles and bicycles. Besides being bereft of any science behind it, the policy is ANTI-POOR most of all. Little did the policy-makers suspect that in the pandemic era, this persecuted mode of transportation would become the city's disaster redeemers. Now let's watch if the policy shifts. |
Unfortunately, it did little to improve people's nutrition overall since they specialized in pizza and other fastfood delivery only for the most part. After all, it had required a complicated arrangement with fastfood outlets to take care of payment remittance, especially in this day and age of G-cash and credit cards. Ordinary restaurants with more diverse menus, as well as most general merchandise stores, were not set up for it. Fastfood franchises had the jump on them but even so to this day orders are still strictly cash-on-delivery (COD) and in the exact amount, too--"keep the change." Riders have no guaranteed ability to break up large bills. In the other end, cashless transaction is the only choice between the fastfood company and the bike courier because of the large amounts and huge volume of transactions involved. Therefore, although invisible throughout, banks were right in the middle of these transactions.
A way needed to be found to cut out the middle man. Enterprising rider groups in the city hastily put together other new variants of the service. This time it involved the consumer himself directly outsourcing the running of pick-up errands. This transformed the motorcycle rider into an independent self-employed service contractor. With no boss to mind, working anytime and any number of hours he picked, he also gets to keep the whole proceeds of his labor. Best of all--at least for now--he pays no taxes.
From the economic standpoint, it was the ultimate leveling of the playing field, an empowerment of the powerless. An ertswile-unemployed motorcyclist simply had to post his mobile phone number on Facebook and other social media, people called him up and asked him to pick up a bottle of aspirin at Mercury Drug and paid him up front when the aspirin is delivered. It worked for as long as the drug was obtainable over-the-counter without a prescription and it didn't cost way too much for the minimally-capitalized motorcyclist to cover in advance. It was that neat and simple, no need to download any apps, set up complicated remittance accounts--most of the people subscribing to this meatball operation's services didn't even bother to ask for receipts.
After this, sky literally was the limit. Food, hardware, medicine, a jerry can of gas, packages of all sizes and shapes, perhaps a replacement for a busted and critically-needed USB phone charger, a sack of dog food for pampered Fifi--the list of possibilities was endless. If Mohammed cannot come to the mountain, the mountain can come to Mohammed, indeed--thanks to this formerly vilified intrepid community of two-wheeled messengers. Now, they hardly even deliver just messages alone but haul anything else that could fit in their topboxes or be strapped to it with bungee cords.
On second thought, even real doctors are happy about the whole thing, not just the doctor of metaphors. The arrangement limited the opportunities for crowd-spreading coronavirus. Plus the motorcylce riders always wore full-faced helmets that were more impregnable than any N-95 mask. With the lowering of the community quarantine to more permissive levels, the once illegal "riding-in-tandem" now saves the day for those who simply cannot work from home and must go to an office or other work place. Motorcycle cabs--angkas they are called--is now a fast-growing subsector of the mass transportation industry.
For the motorcycle rider--remember he works for no one but himself and gets to keep the whole profits from his labor--ferrying goods and people today probably pays off better now than acting as accomplice to a petty crime. Criminals must be having a tough time booking a ride these days. In this way, the motorcycle errand industry is helping lower the crime rate as well.
From being labeled undeservedly as the grand annoyance of the transportation community, these motorcyclists now keep the entire city safe from COVID-19, well-fed, well-supplied, well-mobilized and even well away from being victimized by crime.
So I say the government does owe these long-persecuted motorcyclists an apology. (all photos copyright 2020 Joel R. Dizon)
RECENTLY, I also l started my own YouTube channel and I made a short video about Baguio City's COVID-19 pandemic experience. You can view that video by clicking the image link below:
NOTE FROM JOEL: Hi, folks! Recently, I started a YouTube channel which is called "Parables and Reason" It is kind of similar to this blog content-wise. You can check out my channel by clicking the link below:
Joel R. Dizon - PARABLES AND REASON
