After the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) released a press statement about the “cease and desist” order of ride-hailing app provider Arcade City, the startup company Arcade City came out with their statement via Twitter reiterating their response from their last year’s post.

Here’s their statement last year and re-posted again via Twitter:

“We forgive the LTFRB for ordering Arcade City to “cease operations” before they understood what Arcade City is and is not, specifically how Arcade City is different from Uber.“

“Arcade City does not provide “pre-arranged transportation services for compensation” and therefore does not fit the LTFRB definition of a transportation network company.”

“Driver entrepreneurs may freely identify as Arcade City drivers but Arcade City does not require payment from riders or drivers.”

Unfortunately, this won’t work with the LTFRB. Atty. Aileen Lizada, LTFRB Board Member, made her statement about Arcade City’s response to LTFRB:

“Wag po tayong magpapaloko yung mga Filipino sa Arcade City. Mas malala pa po ito as a transport network company (TNC) or transport network vehicle service (TNVS) because he [Arcade City] claims he is neither a TNC or TNVS.”

“Ano pong epekto nito, marami pong violations. Wala napong accreditation ng transport network company (TNC), wala na pong prangkisa ng transport network vehicle service (TNVS) kaya kami sa LTO, LTFRB, HPG, and MMDA, nationwide sinabihan namin yung mga regional directors na i-download yung app sasakyan namin yung mga kotse nila tapos libreng sakay courtesy of Arcade City at i-impound namin lahat ng kotse nila.”

“Kaya po sa mga kapwa nating Filipino, wag po tayong papaloko kaya kailangan ng gobyerno na pumasok para po yung mga TNC na ilalagay po namin yung karapat-dapat lamang or yung mga nagmamanage ng site dapat competent at alam po namin yung kayahan at background nila. Wag po kayong magpapaloko sa Aracde City, wag na wag po kayomg magpapaloko. Sa part po ng DOTr magpapasulat po kami na i-down po yung kanilang website dun po sa embassy nila and we will file our formal complaint and protest against Arcade City because Arcade City is making a mockery of all the rules and regulations ng ating bansa. Maling-mali po ito,” explained Lizada.

As we observe further how Arcade City operates, we browse their site and this is what saw:

There’s still a box which you can put your email to join until May 2018. We don’t know for sure what they are doing. But as we scroll down the page we were able to see this content:

As we go deeper on what Arcade City is, we also saw this news from medium.com about Arcade City founder and CEO Christopher David.

Now, I’m leaving all the judgement to you!