FAQ’s

The Mobility Awards is a platform that recognizes acts of leadership by Philippine local governments, workplaces, and commercial establishments promoting active mobility, especially cycling as a mode of daily commute among their constituencies, customers, employees, and communities.

Mobility Awards is looking for the most Bicycle-Friendly Cities, Workplaces, and Establishments in the Philippines.

• Bicycle-friendly Cities – Refers to City local government units (CLGUs) that promote cycling as mode of transport in their cities.
• Bicycle-friendly Workplaces – Refers to stand-alone business firms, corporations, industrial office buildings, co-working spaces, and mixed office buildings (meaning multiple office tenants sharing the same building) who provide enabling facilities for their workers, building employees, and their clients.
• Bicycle-friendly Establishments – Refers to all forms of commercial establishments such as stand-alone shops, restaurants, cafes, retail stores, grocery stores, shop outlets, hotels, and shopping malls that provide enabling facilities for their workers and customers.

Cities, where more than 50% of Filipinos reside, require more urgent actions to address the alarming economic and health crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. As engines of economy, commerce, governance and innovation, cities also have the opportunity to make rapid strides towards inclusive, sustainable, and resilient development.

The Mobility Awards’ ability to validate a large scale of nominations covering municipalities and provinces are limited as the pandemic continues to restrict movement. However, we strive to expand our capacity to reach municipalities and provinces in the future.

Nominations are open to the public. Everyone is encouraged to participate and publicly nominate who they think deserve to receive the Mobility Awards recognition. Submissions of nominations per person are unlimited.

Yes!

Bicycle-friendly cities (local government units), workplaces, and establishments can be awarded with Katipunan, Gold, Silver and Bronze ratings.

The top three winners will receive the following prizes based on their rank:

• Gold Rank:
  Bicycle-Friendly Gold Recognition Sign
  P10,000 voucher from bike-friendly stores
• Silver Rank:
  Bicycle-Friendly Silver Recognition Sign
  P8,000 voucher from bike-friendly stores
• Bronze Rank:
  Bicycle-Friendly Bronze Recognition Sign
  P5,000 voucher from bike-friendly stores

The Katipunan Award is the highest rank attainable in the Mobility Awards. It signifies truly transformational efforts initiated and/or adopted by a city, workplace or establishment in promoting bicycle commuting as a mainstream mode of transport among their constituencies, employees, and customers, and in making cities pedestrian-friendly.

This award is inspired by the revolutionary ideals of Katipuneros in uniting Filipinos, securing genuine freedom, and advancing social justice. It emulates these same goals in the Mobility Awards, but in the context of gaining independence from fossil fuels and promoting the mobility needs of the majority of our people.

The Katipunan Award seeks to unite Filipinos behind the ideal that asks our government to prioritize moving people, not cars, and by pointing to public transportation as an effective and pragmatic indicator of democracy in the country.

So far, no one has won the Katipunan Award yet, which serves as a challenge to previous and upcoming nominees for the Mobility Awards.

After submission and upon formal acknowledgement of your nomination, members of the Mobility Awards secretariat will correspond with your representative to ask for more details of your nomination. The data that you have submitted will be verified with the help of our regional partners.

All validated nominations will be evaluated and ranked according to the 5 I’s (namely; Infrastructure, Integration, Implementation, Innovation, Inclusivity) that are consistent in making great places for bicycling.

The top 3 scorers for each category will be recognized as the winners. There is no standard order of winners, the title/rank to be given to each awardee will depend on the score they will receive.

Active mobility encompasses both cycling and walking. The Mobility Awards will still focus largely on bike-friendly initiatives for now. For this round however, we will also consider initiatives that accommodate the needs of pedestrians and help promote walkability in cities and communities that aim to address the mobility needs of the majority of the working Filipinos who do not have private cars, as part of Integration, Innovation and Inclusion criteria.

The Padyak Champion Awards is a special recognitions awards of the Mobility Awards that aim to show appreciation for the tireless efforts and services of cyclist messengers and delivery riders of favored bike-friendly delivery establishments who deal with the pandemic and reckless drivers and who weather traffic, heat, rain, road hazards and blaring horns to deliver much needed food, groceries, books, medicines, and other parcels.

In 2020, we partnered with bike-messengerial companies : Grab, Food Panda, Gofer and Bike Padala PH who nominated their outstanding cyclist-messengers. The Mobility Awards recognized three of the top cyclist-messengers and likewise recognized distinguished cyclist-messengers who who have shown distinction that embodies Filipino/ Filipina characters that best describe the qualities of Citizenship: Makatao (Humanity), Masikap (Perseverance), at Maasahan (Trustworthiness), traits that are worth emulating through their stories and everyday acts of leaderships.

The Siklista ng Bayan Awards aims to recognize hard working entrepreneurial Filipinos who have used bicycles as a main mode of livelihood and business in our communities that are nominated by Filipino netizens. They are your reliable pedicab, padyak, tri-sikad, or your suking magtataho, recycler, barista, the ever reliable pandesal, magbabalot, fish, fruits or vegetable vendors on bicycles, or your ever reliable errand-on-bicycles.

Oftentimes, they are the most unrecognized essential workers, but they provide us with the necessary first and last mile-delivery service. The Siklista ng Bayan Awards aims to recognize their valuable contribution and service to you, your community and to the climate by inviting all citizens to share photos and stories of these everyday heroes who ‘pedals’-the-talk.

Similar to Padyak! Power to the People, we will recognize the top Siklista ng Bayan and will likewise, recognized Siklistas who have shown distinction that embodies Filipino characters that best describe the qualities of citizenship.

There is power in numbers, and when numbers can demonstrate the numbers of people taking low-carbon transport such as bicycles, this open conversations on power shifts (putting numbers and voice on the 88% to argue for better public investment on inclusive infrastructure), accountable governance (generating feedback on how effective public investments on bike infrastructure is being used), and shared data through citizen-local government engagement.

Bilang Siklista’s main resource will be the active citizens who wish to volunteer. Anyone can join the count!

A call for volunteers will be published online through the Mobility Award’s facebook page where citizens can register to volunteer for the count. All volunteers will undergo a free bike count training (to be scheduled) organized by the Mobility Awards.

The count is a one-day event to be led by volunteer counters on standardized count sheets adapted from the US National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project to capture the number and trends of cyclists. Through manual count, count volunteers will record data using a standardized count form and pen/pencil. The count form aims to answer the following questions:

• How many are women? How many are men?
• How many are wearing helmets, how many are not?
• When is the busiest hour?
• Which routes are riders using?

The reports will be released on September 07, 2023 in observance of International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies.

Research findings from this effort will be made available to LGUs and the public including a summary report of trends and findings; access to a database for researchers; online reporting mechanism for LGUs; and recommended count methods.