Egay Uy .
WHAT should be the basis of law enforcers to round up the “tambay” as the term is colloquially used referring to those who pass the time outside the comforts or discomfort of their homes. Many of them, I’d say, are however not necessarily idlers or loafers but simply people who kill time with friends.
The crackdown was reportedly issued verbally last week, which has so far resulted in the arrest of more than seven thousand in Metro Manila alone.
What is good here in Cagayan de Oro is that Supt. Mardi Hortillosa was reported as saying that the Cocpo prefers to have some kind of a set of guidelines that the police office could follow in ridding the streets of “tambay” – in the term’s given meaning. This could be an indirect call for the city council to enact an ordinance regulating the rounding up of idlers and loafers all over the city.
Way back in 2012, the criminal offense of vagrancy ceased to be so through the repeal of Article 202 of the Revised Penal Code by RA 10158. Prior to the repeal, vagrants included any person who has no apparent means of subsistence even as he had the physical ability to work but neglected to apply himself to some lawful calling.
A vagrant may also be one who was found loitering about public or semi-public buildings or places or trampling or wandering about without visible means of support, or just anybody who was found loitering in any inhabited or uninhabited place belonging to another without any lawful or justifiable purpose.
It is good that the chief of the Philippine National Police “has ordered his subordinates to craft guidelines covering the nationwide implementation of the campaign against street loiterers,” as reported by the Business Mirror. He said the guidelines should guide the police officers in enforcing local ordinances, as he clarified that individuals are not being rounded up during wee hours for vagrancy but for violating various local ordinances.
Well and good. The guidelines should consider local ordinances because the national law against vagrancy has been decriminalized in 2012.
For uniformity therefore, the ordinances of the local governments should also be uniform in most, if not all, respects.
Is this possible?
(Egay Uy is a lawyer who serves in the Cagayan de Oro’s Regulatory and Complaints Board, and price coordinating council.)
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