The real score (2)

By Egay Uy

THE proposed budget for additional personnel of the RTA was zero’ed by the city council. This leaves the department with insufficient manpower to man the streets and change the bad habits of road users.

This is even exclusive of abusive road users who intimidate, inflict injuries and maliciously accuse traffic enforcers of wrongdoings.

Take for example the police officer who was advised by a traffic enforcer to move his vehicle because he was parking on a no-parking area. Instead of heeding the advice, the policeman flashed his firearm in plain view of the traffic enforcer, and later spoke intimidating words that sent the traffic enforcer virtually trembling.

Still another incident involved an alleged lady doctor who slapped a traffic enforcer just because she was advised to move her vehicle that was parked on the travel lane in JR Borja near Mortola street.

I am mentioning these recent incidents (there are more of this kind) to show that the job of traffic enforcers is not a walk in the park and yet they are not given the needed resources. We can only motivate them up to a certain point, but the budgets that the RTA proposed for this year were what would have dramatically restored order in the city streets.

The city council does not appear to want to restore order in the streets. The capital outlay proposed budget was cut by sixty-five percent. Only 35 percent was approved.

On the other hand, of the proposed budget for maintenance and other operating expenses of P16.4 million, only P2.4 million was approved. This means a reduction of 85 percent!

Only 33 percent was approved for traffic citation tickets. Does this mean that the city council does not want the RTA to apprehend traffic law violators like in the past, such that what was developed among most road users is the habit of lawlessness?

The items in the proposed budget for this year that were disapproved or zero’ed by the city council include provisions for traffic signs and pavement markings. Even wonder why we lack traffic signs and the pavement markings are hardly visible?

Even with the unreasonable disapprovals and drastic reductions, the RTA and TFHD have continued to be relentless in their mandate to keep the streets free of obstructions and to restore order in the streets amidst obstructions put up by the city council.

And now that the sharing law would have been a ready source of funding for the RTA-TFHD’s projects and programs and activities despite the castration of the proposed budgets, the city council again killed that resource to kill the RTA-TFHD. It’s that simple.

(Egay Uy is a lawyer, city hall consultant, and chairman of the Task Force Hapsay Dalan.)