AROUND five hundred tricycle drivers who lost their livelihood due to the enhanced community quarantine brought about by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) will land new jobs as food delivery riders. Manila Mayor Francisco ‘Isko Moreno’ Domagoso on Monday has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with online food delivery platform foodpanda to launch the “PandaToda” project. The project aims to recruit and train around 500 tricycle drivers from Manila City to become a foodpanda partner rider for two months. Domagoso said the initiative hits two birds in one stone, providing livelihood to displaced drivers, while encouraging residents to stay at home as their food would be delivered by them. Manila Public Employment Service Office Director Fernan Bermejo, however, said that tricycle drivers who wish to join the project but do not have a spare motorcycle could disassemble their tricycle “in compliance with the IATF-[EID] (Interagency Taskforce on Emerging Infectious Diseases) guidelines.”

Source: Manila Times May 11, 2020 08:11 UTC