Group hits ‘excessive no parking rules’

By HUSSEIN MACATORO
Editor

A GROUP of lawyers and businessmen has called on Mayor Oscar Moreno and the city council to rid the city of what it called as “excessive no parking rules.”

In a Sept. 8 petition sent to Moreno and the city council, a copy of which was furnished this paper yesterday, the group led by lawyer Evangeline Tadlas-Carrasco asked local legislators to take action and conduct hearings on the no-parking rules, summon, traffic officials, and find ways to ease the traffic congestion in the city.

Carrasco said the indiscriminate no-parking signs can even be streamlined and refined.

Carrasco’s group expressed its alarm over the lack of parking spaces in many areas in Cagayan de Oro, and blamed this on the massive “‘no parking signs’ which traffic officials have indiscriminately put up without consultation and without regard for the people’s needs for parking spaces.

Carrasco said that while the group appreciates the city government’s desire to ease traffic congestion in the city, “… the absence of parking spaces has resulted in more traffic congestion because vehicles are compelled to circle around the streets to find space.”

She said that as it is now, very long stretches of roadsides along or near Divisoria, Velez, Pabayo, and Cruz Taal streets have been blocked off, to be used only for loading and unloading even if they are wide or one-way roads.

“It should not be so,” said Carrasco, adding that so many businesses and offices have been losing and have been affected by these no-parking road signs.

Carrasco said the Constitution and the Local Government Code expressly direct that there should be consultations before government actions are undertaken.

“We thus pray that such consultations and public hearing be done so the people’s opinion and interests will also be heard,” reads part of the petition.

Those who signed the petition are lawyers Mariano Carrasco, Odilon Apolinario, Mario Juni, Mario Paul Labis, Gil Banaag, Marilen Lezada Rosabal, Eleazer Boycillo, Dr. Rey Cinco, Ruben Palisen, Gemma Herrera, and Frank Ocay, among others.