so driver-assist isn't a thing.
I think you have misunderstood the OP. The cars are remote controlled with very fancy driver assist for the remote driver. IOW, they run on assist say 99% of the time and then the driver (remote, not a passenger) has to step in.
That feels like an odd thing to be frightened of. It's not Mars where there are minutes of latency. Why would the Philippines - specifically - be any more (or less) concerning than if the drivers were in a building a kilometer away from the vehicle?
Neither is great per-se: suspect it would be quite hard to pilot a car well using a remote link (eyes are still surprisingly good compared to cameras).
Secondly, yeah the Philippines is worse. It's 13000k away meaning ~0.1s lag just due to the speed of light, never mind network lag etc. There's also going to more of that due to more hops.
Thirdly, well OK, US driving standards are terrible and the test is almost impossible to fail so no real loss there compared to a Philippines trained driver.
Okay, I'm no fan of these things and wouldn't volunteer to ride in one but really, this is exaggeration. The actual safety records have shown they're marginally better than human drivers. Sure, there are outliers, exceptions and downright frustrating things like what this article is about but as far as I've had any information, they're just that... outliers. Human drivers are the ones I really worry about, personally.
But that also makes no sense: if they're safety record is barely better than humans, then they're basically the same level of worry.
I've long been putting forward the idea that self driving cars ought to be more safe, because humans are shit. But there's more it turns out than just direct safety. If they're causing real problems with emergency vehicles at a rate worse than humans, then that will cause harm, but not in the car crash sense.
Anyway whoever thought they're the future of city transport needs their head examined, frankly. Or really has a fetish for sitting in traffic.