UBER Encourages Ride Sharing to Solve Manila Traffic

Manila has evolved all throughout the years and it's public transportation had been moderately apt a few years ago, but now, everybody knows how it has gotten worse. EDSA has been largely congested and true enough, we're all experiencing the stress and economic impact in the Philippines. How do we solve traffic? How do we make plans work? Honestly, there's just so much cars out in Manila that only got one driver in them and those 4 other seats in sedans and other vehicles come wasted, and unnoticed. If only people started to make pooling and treated it like a normal thing, that would have been better. UBER wants to take a pro active approach, to solve the Manila's traffic is a tough task but they've got research to back it up today via a comissioned study of several cities in the ASEAN region done by The Boston Consulting Group.

Laurence Cua, the GM of UBER Philippines says "How many used ride sharing to go here today? We have a lot of sleepless nights, it's because we want to unlock the city. UBER provides a lot of things including the convenience of going places and we have been here for a number of years. The UBER app has evolved and what was once a simple idea has become a great one over the years. The cost of living has been high in the city, but unfortunately we spend even more because of the traffic congestion. We lose about 2.4 Billion pesos each day and all these time spent on sitting behind the car means there is also environmental cost. Our economy is going to play an important role in the growing region of te ASEAN. In the Philippines, it's so sad to say TRAFFIC has become a part of our daily lives. Not only that, even parking is a lot problematic. Now who among you have said you are late because of the traffic? Who among you spend so much time finding a parking space? Close to 80% of people have been late because of it in the country and people really feel bad about it. We found a lot of interesting insights when we did this survey, including having 402 hours of being stuck in traffic every year. Now it takes 2.3x more effort to actually get to your destination which means Php 100,000 per person per year in Metro Manila. But it's not about the cars, but the way we use it. If you see other cars on EDSA, you often see people in cars with only one driver, and there are 4 other seats there that are left unused. We need to improve reliability with ride sharing so people don't necessarily need to prepare. These days, cabbies still ask you where you'll go before you get to ride one. Being able to reliably get a car and make it affordable at a push of a button is a good thing. This is why we have UBER POOL. We maximize the use of each vehicle and in Manila almost 40% are on it. They use ride sharing more often at a much lower cost. People are now getting the idea of sharing their trips. That's like saving 2 Olympic sized swimming pools filled with Gas and we are heavily investing in this including self driving cars in the US. We are investing ahead, our goal is to make each person to share a car conveniently in our transport network. To reduce 90% of cars on the road. 7/10 people in Manila has already considered ride sharing as an alternative in owning a car and we are now encouraging people to use ride sharing to make our lives better. We are commited to be part of the solution. The personal car needs in Manila can be met with 1/3 of cars we have today, that's 1 Million cars off the road. We hope you enjoy riding together, to succeed, we could leverage this technology and #UnlockManila by #RideTogether "

Boston Consulting Group has done the research in heavily, dense, most populated cities in Asia including Manila and they know the demand of transportation still occurs. It happens in Manila every day, that's when congestion happens. We have to invest more in infrastructure, make more efficient use of our current assets (like trains, buses, cars) and it will have a big impact in traffic and congestion. Ride sharing can scale ridership demand. Increase more people per kilometer by pooling and do smart matching. 

Ride sharing can help by not making purchasing a car an option if ride sharing is efficient. You can have more passengers per vehicle and it could complement public transport. This would be great to optimize infrastructure for investment timing and get to outlying areas. It has improved cities in Asia and they hope it happens in Manila.

It's possible, so let's do our share!

KUMAGCOW

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Piolo Pascual Endorses LIVINGWATER on their 13th Year

It's been 13 years since they've set up shop and now they've got hundreds of franchisees in the Philippines. I'm sure you've seen one of their branches near you. They are definitely brighter, better and stronger this year helping Filipinos acheive their dreams one water refilling station at a time. This business model has already been lauded because of their low franchise fees and very high demand because the owners knew how much they need to help other people while they are growing their own business. The event was hosted by Tart Carlos and their executives, and they didn't want to end this day without celebrating their 13th year and introducing their newest endorser Piolo Pascual. 

Piolo will be the face of the company from hereon, and also have Sarah Geronimo stay as the one who sang their company jingle. They hope they've got the best people to represent their products, they said they won't settle for anything else. Piolo says "I am touched, I am inspired by their story and I'm glad to be part of a premium product that would be available nationwide. I have set up 4 of these refilling stations in the past but now it's only two, I hope I could grow more of it by joining them, I like their business model. Thank you LIVINGWATER for having me as your endorser!"

Beth and Edward Prades were all smiles and said "It doesn't matter how long this journey is, but what matters is who you are with in this journey. Thank you for being beside us all these years. People thought this indistry is saturated and not lucrative, but now you know it still it is profitable. We concentrated on Product, Placement, Promotion, now we have living water refilling stations that serve better water using our technologies not seen anywhere else. Our phenomenal growth is because of our highest standards, the service, the price is affordable and competitive. To serve each Filipino the healthier, cleaner and safer drinking water is our mission. The country needs more, our population is growing still and demand is there. Livingwater is looking forward to double this number all over the Philippines and also expand it's presence overseas. We hope you all continue to be part of our journey!"

Congratulations LIVINGWATER! You're in good company with Piolo Pascual.

KUMAGCOW

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Aicelle Santos for "AWIT NA AICELLE!" at the Music Museum

She's gorgeous, she's talented and very much a good soul. It's probably the reason why she's blessed because it takes a lot to be Aicelle Santos. She's the Rock and soul diva she just had us at awe when she appeared for a bog conference in Palm Grill Tomas Morato yesterday.

She says "I love soul, rnb music and if it's about the discipline, theater had me. I have to rehearse not just because of money, but you have to feed your passion, you have to feed your soul."

We also saw her dish out tunes with the country's one and only Regine Velasquez Alcasid during the Regine 3.0 concert, with how the netizens saw her performance they completely were taken aback on how she was able to carry a song with Asia's songbird. She humbly says "I was just singing as usual, it was something that was expected of me but I too was surprised on how the netizens lauded me for that performance. I am just blessed".

Here's our interview with the lovely lady:

Here's how she slayed us with her new song:

If you need tickets to the show, you may get it from Ticketnet outlets (8919999), GMA Artist Center and at the Music Museum entrance (7216726) on the day of the event. Don't miss it on November 30, 2017. You'll love her even more! That I'm sure!

This is produced by GMA Artist Center and Stages. 

KUMAGCOW

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HEY MATTEO at the Kia Theater

I was surprised to see Matteo Guidicelli actually singing live, dishing some of his original music. He knows the Filipinos now are intense, so he wants to reflect that in the songs that he's doing in his upcoming concert called HEY MATTEO. Hoping you would be able to get to know him, less the electonic stuff because he wants to tone it down, make it a bit raw and a bit reminiscent of the sounds he grew up with.

Matteo says "This passion of mine came about when I was in high school. These guys are my friends (pointing to his band) and a few years ago they were just doing this for fun every weekend. My album "Hey Matteo!" consists of all original songs and they knew how a lot of people would appreciate it. I have friends who wrote for me some of the songs in the album, I don't know how to write lyrics yet but I'd like to do that soon. I told them I want the 90's feel, a bit alternative and this is what happened. Now, it's a different concept, I'm bringing a little pop rock on the table and I hope people would love it. The whole album is about what I feel, it's about the truth and this is like my outlet, my reality. This has been my dream and Sarah is a big inspiration to whatever I do. I want to focus on these things, I found love in music and I hope to bring this to schools."

Here's a couple of the songs from his album, enjoy!

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Then he adds "Kia Theater is scary already for me, but I trust my team, they told me to do it there. I'm just a boy from Cebu who just wants to make things happen. I have intense songs, love songs, some that would charm and some that has rage in the album. It's a mix, 10 tracks and I'm glad Big Bang Productions and Star Music helped us distribute it and I'm glad. I'll also be doing a movie to be released next year so I hope you support me in all my endeavors. I'll be doing a few covers and doing a few numbers with other artists too. I hope you'll love that."

HEY MATTEO will happen at the Kia Theater on November 30, 2017 at 7:30pm. Be there and support him please! :) It will be a fun night as he tells his story.