Lawmaker in the Philippines Proposes Bill That Jail People for Shaming Food Delivery Riders

If you think Singapore treats its food delivery riders badly, wait till you see what’s going on in the Philippines.

People In Philippines Are Maliciously Pranking Food Delivery Riders

We did a quick search on Google using the search term: people pranking delivery riders in philippines

And we got 3.4 million results.

And even if only 5% of the results are truly relevant, that’s about 170,000 relevant results.

According to Visor, an internet publication in the Philippines, people are maliciously pranking food delivery riders.

Here’s how the system works over there for cash transactions:

• Food delivery rider gets the order
• The rider makes his way to the restaurant and pays out of his own pocket for the food
• Food delivery rider makes his way to the customer and gets paid back the money (plus service) after delivery

Which seems to work fine, except some people seems to take joy in ordering, then cancelling it at the last minute.

Then, the poor guy is left with food that he didn’t want and already paid for with his own money.

While some food delivery companies in the country, like GrabFood, reimburses their riders for this kind of cancellations, these riders still lose “valuable time and daily capital”.

So there you are, thinking, is this happening often enough, or just one or two bored people?

Well, it’s happening often enough for a lawmaker to suggest making laws against it.

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Jail For People Who Prank Food Delivery Riders

On 8 June, a House bill to penalise people who cancel confirmed orders was filed in the Philippines.

Called the Food and Grocery Delivery Services Act, the bill proposes that people are not allowed to cancel food and grocery delivery orders where:

• advanced payment has already been made
• or are already on the way to the customer

Those who violate this act, the bill proposed, can be jailed for at least 6 years.

They must also pay a ₱100,000 (~S$2,771.15) fine and compensate food and delivery service providers for items that are paid for by the riders, and double the amount of cancellation fees charged.

This bill is targeted at customers who ordered for the purpose of a malicious prank, or those who have no intention of receiving the orders in the first place.

Jail For Those Who Shame Delivery Riders

Anyone who is caught shaming, demeaning, embarrassing or humiliating delivery riders across any platform will face at least six months in jail or prision correccional.

This, however, is open to amendment if the penalties are deemed to be “too harsh”.

It was added that pranking delivery riders are so “widespread” nowadays that this bill should serve as an announcement that the Congress is serious about this issue.

Exemptions

But what if you really have to cancel? Do you have to go to jail for this?

Well, turns out, there are exemptions to the proposed bill:

• if it was a credit card transaction and payment is still made to the service provider despite the cancellation
• payment is made as a pre-condition for the cancellation of an order
• the delivery is late for at least an hour and it’s not the driver’s negligence that caused it

Other Requirements

Food and delivery service providers are also required to make customers submit a valid proof of identity and residential address or proof of billing.

The customer’s identity must also be verified through video calls.