The transport committee of the Lower House is drafting its substitute bill on granting the Philippine President emergency powers to address traffic problems in Metro Manila and other congested areas in the country.
Catanduanes Representative Cesar Sarmiento, House of Representatives (HOR) Committee on Transportation (COTr) chairperson, assured in a press briefing on November 7 that COTr “is determined to grant special powers to the President and the Department of Transportation (DOTr).”
The substitute bill is limited to traffic and land transportation problems in Metro Manila and nearby areas, Metro Cebu, and Davao City. But though the scope is limited, Sarmiento clarified this does not mean other areas are not experiencing transportation problems as well.
“They may not be under a traffic crisis but still their transport system needs to be improved. We look forward for the Transport Crisis Bill to also serve as template for changing the transport system in other areas too,” Sarmiento explained.
The lawmaker said the substitute bill will include a “solution to the crisis within the traffic crisis,” calling this second problem the “displacement crisis” involving public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers and employees.
Under the bill, PUV workers to be displaced by route rationalization, law enforcement, and mass transportation projects will be covered by a support mechanism.
This mechanism includes assistance to affected workers through the conditional cash transfer program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD); training courses of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) ; and help from the Department of Labor and Employment and Philippine Overseas Employment Administration in looking for employment locally or abroad for these people.
Also, scholarship grants await children of displaced workers, to be provided by the Department of Education, DSWD, and TESDA; and financing schemes will be given by the Development Bank of the Philippines to affected operators and drivers so they can modernize their units.
In COTr’s bill, the judiciary could provide support by prohibiting the issuance by the lower courts, except by the Supreme Court, of temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions for priority projects, programs, and policies to be implemented under the Traffic Crisis Act.
It also proposes a Special Traffic Crisis Court in each metropolitan area to quickly resolve all actions emanating from the implementation of the proposed law, including expropriation proceedings.
The Ombudsman, Commission on Audit, and Civil Service Commission may also help by creating a joint committee that will immediately address complaints filed against public officials and make recommendations on how to rectify the audit, personnel, and other issues.
Sarmiento said these agencies support the suggested steps.
The bill will also mandate full disclosure of all aspects of the implementation of the Traffic Crisis Act, such as traffic management plans, priority projects, budgets and funding sources, and even minutes of meetings during procurement or negotiations as well as the backgrounds and statements of assets, liabilities and net worth, or SALNs, of personalities involved.
“These are incomplete, anti-poor, and non-exclusive solutions. They avoid addressing the real issues and, in the process, deprive the middle and lower-income classes of mobility means without providing any alternative solution. Only those that can afford multiple cars are benefitted by these kinds of scheme,” Sarmiento admitted.
“To commiserate, advocates of these types of schemes, especially those in the government, should take public transportation to realize the hardship that our fellow Filipinos are being made to go through,” Sarmiento said.
“The true solution to the traffic crisis is an inclusive and rationalized transportation system,” he noted, adding that this can be initiated by DOTr even without emergency powers.
He said DOTr and its attached agencies Land Transportation Office and Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board already have the necessary powers tot accomplish these tasks as embodied in their mandates.
The COTr technical working group (TWG) is set to begin crafting the substitute bill this week. The Senate Committee of Public Services, meanwhile, has started the TWG on the proposed law.
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