Grab XS

Members: Joshua Yu, Nathan Tecson, John Wee, Carlo Saavedra, Xavier San Gabriel

Part 1: Community Background

1.1 Demographics

The issue that the group is tackling is the issue on workers rights and welfare. To be

specific, the workers rights and welfare of the canteen vendors in Xavier School. Most of the

canteen vendors are males and females between the age of 22-30, they are usually graduates of

high school and maybe even university who are looking for a job to support their family and

even themselves. These jobs tend to have low pay and require little education and skill to do.

1.2 Community structures and history

Workers’ welfare and rights have been an issue for a very long time now. It came to

prominence sometime after the start of the industrial revolution. Workers have often found

themselves having to demand better working conditions, wages, etc. The issue of workers’

welfare has been around for a very long time, but came to prominence in the past hundred and

fifty years. Nowadays, workers in developed countries get benefits and better wages, but in

developing nations such as the Philippines, workers don’t get the same protections and high

wages. For example, a common issue that usually arises when it comes to unemployment in the
Philippines is contractualization. In the Philippines, businesses hire workers for 5 months then

let them go on the 6th so that they would not have to give them extra benefits. It is also common

for workers in the Philippines to find it difficult to find new jobs because of the growing

population of the Philippines and the lack of job opportunities, this issue is evident as we see

millions of Filipinos (OFWs) who go abroad just to find a better job. ​The working conditions in

the Philippines differ depending on the type of job. People with less skilled employment have

little job security, receive low pay and often they work for long hours or in dangerous

conditions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an ongoing 8 month lockdown in the Philippines.

All businesses have found it difficult to earn income because of this and many have been forced

to close. This has left millions of Filipinos unemployed and a lot of workers have been having a

very hard time amidst the pandemic. A lot have lost jobs and their livelihoods. The poor

response of the government to the pandemic and the lockdowns make it even harder to find

jobs. Within Xavier, we see this same pattern through canteen stalls. They are small businesses

and so are most affected by lockdowns. With the shift to online classes, students are no longer

buying food from the canteen during breaks and the canteen has been closed for months.

Although we are unsure of the situation of the canteen stalls in Xavier School, we want to show

concern for these small businesses and their workers. No one benefits from these terrible events

and a lot of people suffer including the families of the workers and the workers themselves
Part 2: Analysis

2.1 Social Analysis

A lot of workers have been having a very hard time amidst the pandemic. A lot have lost

jobs and their livelihoods. The government doesn’t do anything to help them and the lockdowns

make it even harder to find jobs.

Within Xavier, canteen vendors and concessionaires are experiencing the same thing.

They are small businesses and so are amongst those most affected by lockdowns. We want to

show concern for these small businesses and their workers as they have been the ones feeding

us all this time in high school.

Here, canteen stall owners and the school administrators and community have the ability

to help canteen stall workers by reopening a revenue stream that these canteen stalls have lost.

For us, our patronage of these businesses and continued support can help give these workers

wages for at least a few weeks or months to help support them.

These are small businesses we are dealing with, resources are quite scarce. This is why

we want to help them out by offering a “delivery” service to reconnect them to Xaverian faculty

and staff to support them and give them additional revenue to pay their workers.

The political structures SHOULD be helping these people, however due to the
indifference of the government it isn't. First and foremost, the national government has the

greatest political power to help those unemployed. However, because they aren’t doing much,

the onus is now on the school administrators and Xavier School community as well as canteen

stall owners to help their workers and continue to pay them.

In this situation, no one benefits. Business owners have no business cause of the

lockdowns so they can’t pay their suppliers. Workers don’t get to work and thus don’t get paid.

There’s no business so the government can’t collect any tax revenues. And finally, the

community doesn’t benefit because there are no goods or services to be consumed.

2.2 Theological Analysis

We will be analyzing the problem from the framework of the four Catholic Social Teachings.

Human Dignity:​ Xavier School canteen vendors are no less deserving of love or care than any

one of us. A part of upholding is acknowledging their basic right to have access to food, water,

shelter, clothing, etc. On a deeper level, it would involve providing them with the means to feed

themselves and their families through employment opportunities. These people are unemployed

not because of a lack of merit or determination, but because of a lack of opportunity. We wish

to give them their lost opportunity.

Common Good​: We want to help the people, through this project we hope that we would be

able to help our fellow Filipino. By helping canteen vendors, we are able to also help small

local businesses. If the project becomes successful, we local businesses can grow and offer new
job opportunities, decreasing the unemployment rate. If this happens we would be able to help

in slowly jump starting our economy, which was greatly affected by the pandemic.

Subsidiarity: ​We hope to demonstrate subsidiarity by establishing and maintaining close

communications with canteen stall owners. We understand that due to limitations with

manpower and communication channels, maintaining communications with every canteen stall

employee might not be possible. Therefore, canteen stall owners, their employers, will play a

crucial role in this project as they will be the mediators between us and the workers. By

maintaining communications, we wish to stay updated with the situations of the stall employees

so we can adjust our implementation of our Life Project while it is being implemented.

Solidarity:​ During this pandemic, it is important for us all to practice solidarity. The pandemic

has brought many situations of inequality and poverty to people all over the world and

especially here in the Philippines. By coming together as one community who values each

fellow human being, we will be able to build a community that helps everyone regardless of

their situation. Our project aims to do this by bringing together the Xavier community to find

ways to help those in the canteen who have served us for years. Solidarity does not necessarily

mean feeling bad for the misfortunes of others but rather it is making a commitment to the

common good as we are responsible for everyone around us.

3.1 Problem Statement, Rationale, Scope and Limitation

Problem Statement: ​The COVID-19 pandemic has put a halt to operations in the Xavier

School canteen. As a result, we worry that stall employees are unable to find employment and

are therefore not being paid. Canteen stall owners themselves likely are seeing drastic

reductions in revenues as well.

Rationale​: We wish to use technology to help these workers find employment once again. We

hope to do this through a delivery platform that will give canteen stall owners the ability to sell

their food to the Xavier School community. In doing so, we hope that we are able to sustain

their basic human needs and lighten their burden to find employment or a source of income.

Scope​: We will be working with canteen vendors in Xavier who would be willing to offer their

products for delivery. The delivery platform itself can either be through a website or Google

Docs. At the moment, we are leaning towards using a website as it would be easier to include all

the products of the various canteen vendors on a website as opposed to Google Forms. For the

actual delivery itself, we are contemplating using Grab or Lalamove, but costs might be an issue

and so we might have to look for less popular alternatives for delivery.

Limitation​: A lot of the reasons people buy Xavier is because of the convenience and cheap

price. Therefore the high costs of transportation may offset sales. This is our biggest concern

with our project. Other than that, some canteen vendors might not even be operating at all, so

they might have a hard time starting operations once again. We will have to coordinate with

Xavier to see if the canteen vendors can operate from the canteen at reduced rent.
3.2 Objectives and Expected Outcomes

Our objective is to be able give a sustainable source of income to at least help them get

through this pandemic. We aim to do this by providing a service (website/forms) where

Xaverians can order food from their favorite canteen stalls.

Through this, we expect to provide the canteen vendors with employment and enough

money to at the very least sustain their basic human needs -- food, shelter, clothing, etc.

3.3 Project Implementation Plan: duration, logistics, program - Tecson

The project would last until the covid situation gets better

Week 1 We would start looking for business, who can

be our partners. We would also do some

research

Week 2 We would begin contacting possible Business

Owners if they would be willing to be part of

our project. We would also begin finding

people who have the skills needed for our

project.
 Week 3 If we are able to find the people who have the

skills needed, we would begin to orient them

about our project and begin working on a

website. If not, we would continue to look for

people.

Week 4 Assuming all goes according to plan, we

would be finalizing our websites and

finalizing the agreement with our partners.

Week 5 We would begin our trial

Week 6 Fixing everything, including the minor

details and the minor errors, seen in week 5

and hopefully fix all of them.

Week 7 We would regularly update the website and

along the way we would continue to improve

our services. This project will last until

school returns.

Logistics: it will be up to us to decide how the delivery of food is going to be handled

We will be looking for people who have the skills needed for this project. We need skills in

creating a website and a logistic chain to supply to online consumers. We also need awareness
in the market to get sales and enough revenue for the business owners and can sustain the

canteen workers. We also need to coordinate with Stall owners (business administration), to be

able to have a good project.

3.4 Plan/Provision for Sustainability of the Program

To provide sustainability for the program would really depend on multiple factors. The

program is very receptive to both its consumers and producers. As something “business” related

it is heavily reliant on its monetary capabilities and prospects. Our biggest concern with regard

to sustainability of the program are the added delivery costs which might discourage customers

from buying. In order to get the project started, we might need to ask for sponsors from

generous Xaverian alumni or parents so that initial costs can be incurred without sacrificing the

pay of workers, acting like a buffer or “subsidy”. All revenues thereafter, however, will go

completely to the canteen vendors. This should help to keep costs as low as possible and

therefore keep prices at a minimum as well, which should help to stimulate demand.

Sustainability will be achieved through keeping costs and prices at a minimum so as not to

further worsen decreased demand resulting in delivery fees. It must be noted, however, that we

cannot ensure that all stalls will see equal revenues. The nature of business simply means that

some businesses are more competitive than others, and it is up to stall owners themselves to

ensure that their business strategy is able to generate demand for their products. As much as we

would like to help all vendors equally, our knowledge of business management might be too

limited to help them all.

As a start up the business might face high costs at the start and will not meet its quota

for profit because it has an underdeveloped market. This is expected to grow through time but

does not have enough sales at the start. This is why this project would rely heavily on the

support of the (Xavier) community to aid the opening and operation of the project. The

community can serve as a “booster” before the project would be able to support itself.

Another instance where consumer nature and behaviour affects the sustenance of the

project is their dependence on the products. If the families/consumers are not dependent or

usually order online, the project has not much utility to these consumers. This means that the

purchase or use of the projects is only occasional and becomes unsustainable. Consumer nature

such as where they live can also affect the importance of delivery. If they live too near the shops

or available restaurants then there is not much need for paying extra for delivery. While living

too far means that it would be more reasonable for families to cook their own food because

delivery would be too much of a cost. These are reasons on how consumers are affected by

prices, we can conclude from this is that the willingness of a consumer to spend or what we can

call “buying power” is a primary factor in the sustenance of this project

2. How producer behaviour and nature affects the project.

It is clear that a major factor in the success of a business is the product. If the product

possesses something special such as its “brand”, uniqueness at the same time is something

“staple-like” then consumers would be drawn to buy this product despite its price. Possessing

all these traits are very rare but ideal in the increasingly competitive markets today. This is
because it creates a desire for explicitly your products or services. Although realistically

speaking, products don't really reach all these expectations which contributes to the reason why

there isn't much success in these types of industries.Which is why an idea that I propose is to

create multiple surveys that can serve as an analysing resource of clients. This creates a more

targeted market and fulfills the desires of our consumers while making sure they are satisfied

with the current services and products that the project provides. When a target market is formed

then they will be more dependent and comfortable with the platform and services. The products

will also be shaped towards these people which forms loyalty from consumers and specialty in

the products.

Aside from the products, another big factor would be the price. Although unlike the

product, the price is something that producers have a limited control over. Even as it seems that

they can place any price on their products, if they aim for sustainability, there are multiple

constraints especially in the factors of production. These include the labor, cost of products,

logistics and many other factors that are additives to the products price and as discussed above,

they can't make the price too high because consumers wont buy this. It takes time and analysis

for producers to find out the most profitable price for their product and in the instance that their

total cost of production is equal to their total revenue means that they are in break even and is

not sustainable but as cost of production rises or revenue decreases means that they are losing

money and the project is no longer sustainable. This means that the project would also be reliant

with the current economy/markets prices. An example for this is an unexpected spike in oil

prices, which makes the logistics expensive so people don't buy that much or their profit is

reallocated to the cost for oil.

Aside from the proposed solutions to the specific, multiple potential problems that

would still be faced in the start of the project. Theoretically, when all goes to plan another

possible solution to the problem is marketing. Although consistency may be key to most

businesses, consistency does not mean being static. Projects and business must always be aware

and dynamic with ongoing events in its environment. An example would be the proper and safe

process of serving these foods in light of the ongoing pandemic such as wearing masks and

shields, or having extra sanitary measures. These help assure its consumers of the high quality

service and affect their decision in choosing your product and services. Another way to show

relevance to the environment is showing appreciation and respect for cultural festivals and

events. An example would be promotional sales during christmas or having dice game events

that give discounts to the products. These showcase cultural awareness and entice consumers

because it induces belongingness.

Overall, we see that there are multiple measures to solve problems to promote

sustainability but there will always be cases which seem unsolvable so there would be a

requirement of having a fund that would sustain the project in the coming of rainy days. But as

a business minded project, we should see the project for not just what it is or what it has to offer

now but also see it for what it can become because the project is more of an investment that can

provide not just sustenance in the future but as a competitive tool for business owners and also a

great comfort for its community.