President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the government is already collaborating with Grab Philippines to legalize motorcycle taxis and relax regulations on transportation network vehicle services in the country.

During the courtesy call of the top executives of Grab Holdings Inc., led by Chief Executive Officer Anthony Tan, in Malacañang earlier this week, Marcos said the move aims to expand transportation options and would benefit commuters, drivers, and micro, small, and medium enterprises.

The president further acknowledged Grab's significant impact on employment in the Philippines as the company offers ride-hailing, food and parcel delivery, digital payments, and financial services.

"Your impact on unemployment numbers comprises about 1.1 percent of the increase in employment in the past year and half," Marcos Jr. told Tan in the meeting.

"That's Grab, so that's the 300,000 that we're talking about, has a significant effect. Some upstreams and downstreams comes with it, so yeah, there are jobs created not only the actual operators," Marcos Jr. added.

Tan, in response, highlighted the positive impact Grab has further implicated on the quantity and quality of jobs created when they acquired the moto-taxi service Move It.

Tan also shared that a former habal-habal driver who has worked for ten years and now earns three times as much with Grab as he did before, or between P1,500 and P2,500 a day, as opposed to P500 to P700.

“So, it’s not just about number of jobs, Mr. President, it’s the quality, increasing livelihood,” Tan told President Marcos.

Tan stated that Grab can achieve this level of ridership in six months with the President's backing.

Recall that Grab suggested last year that motorcycle taxis be made legal and that the provision of transport network vehicle services be deregulated.