The Philippines has cities that have some of the worst traffic in Southeast Asia, and its capital, Metro Manila, is ranked as one of the most congested cities worldwide. However, the worst road traffic in the world can be seen differently through the eye of an entrepreneur. Innovating the motorcycle industry in the Philippines, Founder, and CEO of Angkas George Royeca aims to build a two-wheel ecosystem to empower his fellow Filipinos plagued by traffic jams.

Dubbed “Uber for bikes”, Angkas’ taxi bike service brings people to their destinations in a more efficient way by avoiding the country’s notorious traffic jams. That mission soon took on a different hue when the founders saw the extent to which people depended on the vehicles to feed their families.

Angkas trained over 150,000 accredited bikers throughout the past few years, and valued them as the most essential stakeholders of its community. With 18 million motorcycle owners in the country, the potential impact that this startup can have on the industry as a whole can be huge, yet it wasn’t an easy road to take. Both the authorities and Filipinos have expressed their concerns of the new transportation method’s safety, as they were unfamiliar with it.

However, Angkas eventually proved their services to be safe with a 99.997 percent safety rate and kept educating the public on the bikes’ safety measures via social media; the company actively engages with passengers and bikers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to warm the ecosystem. The new president of the country, Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos Jr. and his son, Sandro Marcos, also shone a spotlight on the company by sharing about its services on their Instagram accounts.

George has been fighting for his business along this resilient journey to win the regulation and pioneering the motorcycle taxi industry in the Philippines, as he believes Angkas is opening a new road for these drivers — one that leads to a better life. Our partner Brian Lu and investor Kate Liu found his passion deeply moving.

We talked to George about his vision for the future of the two-wheel industry and how it can change people’s lives in the Philippines.

1. Why motorcycles? Where is the passion coming from to go into a highly regulated industry and try to establish a new norm of transportation in the Philippines?

A motorcycle is definitely a more affordable choice. Moreover, it’s small and agile to navigate across different types of streets and much more effectively than a regular car.

A lot of people look at the Philippines and they don’t realize it’s actually a motorcycle country. There are 80 million motorcycles in the Philippines compared to 6 million cars. Among these 6 million cars, half of them are concentrated in Metro Manila so when you actually go outside of Metro Manila the ratio between motorcycle and car is as high as 18 to 1, which shows that motorcycle is the preferred choice of vehicle. I think it’s really quite effective in terms of providing transportation, logistics as well as other types of services on two wheels. It is a faster, more efficient, and affordable way to get around.

2. Angkas is gradually developing services around the bikers. What does the future two-wheel ecosystem look like in your vision?

We believe that motorcycles can enable masses of people to get on the path of financial freedom with their affordability level.

The motorcycle is the first thing that a low-income family household purchases and they use the motorcycle not just as a family car but as a way to conduct business whether indirectly as a side gig or directly to support the full-⁠time work on platforms like Angkas or delivery for McDonald’s or Jollibee. There are really lots of things that you can do with a motorcycle and for us we want to be able to enhance that.

I think one of the primary motivations for us is how we empower 18 million motorcycle owners and make them entrepreneurs; also what type of services we can provide by using two wheels to give them their own time and a satisfactory level of income. The main vision of Angkas is to solve everyday problems for ordinary Filipinos and we believe that the motorcycle is at the center and the heart of it all.

3. As one of the most loved brands and renowned social media darling in the Philippines, how will Angkas continue to make that impact in the future?

Our biggest impact is “freedom”. Financial freedom for both our stakeholders and also to be free from the clutches of traffic, which is an attack on everybody’s quality of life. For commuters, being in congestion is not just a productivity issue or a financial issue, but also a quality-⁠of-⁠life issue. Nothing moves when there’s congestion and a lot of the small and big decisions that one makes center around traffic. Even a 10-kilometer distance can mean hours and hours spent commuting, especially in a country like the Philippines, where Manila was named the city with the worst traffic in the world in 2019.

Many of your decisions really center on traffic; you can only limit yourself to two meetings a day and even parents look at school not by merit but rather on the daily commute of their children and also the preference for the workplace. A lot of these things hinder or limit your pool and choices because of traffic and that impacts dramatically in the long-⁠term. On the flip side, it’s the freedom from poverty. Financial independence is something that empower our

Angkas give the bikers a set stream of livelihood but it’s all optional for them. They can turn off the app when they don’t want to work or when they need to do other things, and it gives them that mindset of being an entrepreneur — when you don’t work you don’t eat, and when you work very hard, you reap the fruits of your labor. We believe that Angkas is really creating hundreds of thousands entrepreneurs who have the ability to manage their own time and have a much higher quality of life, and also own the power to take care of their family.

4. Being the one who pioneered the motorcycle taxi business in the country, Angkas has gone through several ups and downs, what do you think is the biggest challenge you had to overcome?

Being a pioneer has its advantages but also challenges. There wasn’t any way for motorcycles back then before I came into the picture. Informal motorcycle taxis are called “habal-⁠habal” (originated from the local dialect, meaning “sitting close to each other”) in the Philippines.

”Habal-habal” has really negative connotations not just for regulators but also the general public because of the accidents. There is no education involved, no safety equipment, no insurance, and nobody to run after when problems arise. In order to bring solution to this problem, we professionalized the entire industry by increasing the level of security.

At first, we had to pave our own road to gain general acceptance not only from regulators but also from the public. Back then, motorcycles were seen as the lower echelon of travel, and now because of what we’ve done, how we explained it into the market and pushed the practical aspect of riding a motorcycle (especially in very heavy traffic areas in the Philippines), the majority accepted motorcycles as a part of the city and also a part of the public transportation ecosystem.

Now Angkas has successfully created a model, but I still consider this company in pilot stage even if it’s a five-⁠year-⁠old company. We piloted the model for motorcycle taxis in two of the top congested cities in the country, Metro Manila and Metro Cebu, and now the challenges are how we replicate this model to fit every single city in the entire country. We are now working on refining this successful model and extending this opportunity to millions of potential motorcycle owners so that they can have a better life. This is really a part of our advocacy and a part of what motivates and drives us.

5. How does Angkas support hundreds of thousands of bikers and build up such a strong biker community?

The biker community for us is one of our vital and primary stakeholders, as well as suppliers. What we want to do — and what we’ve been doing — is to really fight for their rights, not just against public prejudice but also via legislation, so we want to put all of these changes onto paper and turn them into proper law, where we will then be able to guarantee the rights of the motorcycle riders.

We have set a trend to show the public how important motorcycles are to the community and the economy before and during the pandemic. Few instances would be how Angkas enabled people got laid off during pandemic to earn a living as a bikers, also how we helped Philippine Red Cross replenish the blood reserves.

Before legalizing and regulating this industry, it was still a cat and mouse game with the fear of cops, and also facing the ire of many motorists who didn’t know how to coexist on the road with motorcycles, essentially motorcycle riders second-⁠class citizens.

Angkas has been able to not only show the importance of motorcycles but also create a sense of dignity and pride for the motorcyclists, giving them the drive to become better citizens. Basically that’s what our community means to us. We believe that this sector is large and undervalued. If we unlock its potential, we could be looking at 18 million more entrepreneurs in this country, which could be a massive drive to the economy.

6. Angkas continuously make contributions in mobility and help other sectors survive the impact of the pandemic. Is there any memorable story during Covid times?

Angkas has been part and parcel of the private sector group that collaborated with the government in the nation’s response to Covid-19.

Angkas was there leading the charge alongside other top conglomerates and brands in the country to communicate awareness, vaccine education and vaccine drives.

One of the most notable moments that I’ll never forget is when the entire public transportation system was shut down because of quarantine, and the country was on lockdown. Nobody could leave their homes and this meant that medical frontliners without cars had to walk to the hospital because there was no public transportation.

We decided to pick up medical frontliners without charge and gave them rides to the hospitals and later back home. This created a very good feeling all around. The government, specifically the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board noticed our efforts and everyone appreciated what we were doing then.

We also launched a campaign during the pandemic to help anybody who wanted to give free food and medicine to local communities and those who worked on the Covid-19 frontlines. Angkas would pick the items up and deliver them to the receivers for free.

One really special thing that happened during the pandemic was how private sectors stepped up to help the government, not just financially but in all aspects from organizations execution. That was when I saw a lot of companies set aside their differences and simply pitch in to help. If anything good came out of the pandemic, it was our ability to work together and put aside our differences for the greater good.

7. Can you share how you met Headline and what your experience has been working with us?

I believe in Headline. They are one of the more progressive groups out there; there’s no nonsense involved when working with them. They’re able to deduce a lot of the different aspects of the business, zero in on what’s important and how we identify these key elements.

They helped push us to move forward and contribute to the overall success of the company. I look forward to more collaborations with Headline and I hope that we all work together to make a difference by putting technology in the hands of the masses and using that to empower them in aspects that range from transportation, logistics, fintech, and solving regular problems. I believe technology is really the catalyst and it has been so for the longest time, from mobile phones to the internet and now Web 3.0. This is something I’m excited for, and Headline is the right partner for these changes. Here’s to hoping we can have more future collaborations.

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