Enforcing the ban vs. tricycles to protect lives

THE usual lax and often selective enforcement of laws in the country can be seen in the enforcement of the law banning tricycles, pedicabs, kuliglig, garong, and other three-wheeled vehicles on the highway.

Since R.A. 4136 was passed in 2007, no province, town or city government in the country has invoked the law in spite of series of accidents involving tricycles that resulted in deaths.

When DILG Sec, Eduardo Año issued a circular reminding governors and mayors to enforce the ban in 2018, we still see slow-moving tricycles keeping to the center lanes on widened highways. Clearly, local governments, including the Land Transportation Office had not bothered to educate and enforce the ban.

The decision, therefore, of Lingayen Mayor Leopoldo Bataoil, himself a former police director and a lawmaker, to come forward to strictly enforce the ban in his town will finally create the needed public awareness about the unenforced law. His is a worthy demonstration of leadership and political will.  

We hope all the towns and cities in Pangasinan will see merit in finally enforcing that law. After all, it’s perhaps the only law that compel tricycle and pedicab drivers to realize that there is this specific law that regulates their vehicles’ legitimate use of the highways, and its purpose is to save and protect lives on the highways.

 ‘Massive flunker’

IT is so brazen of Leni Robredo to brand the government’s anti-drug war as a “massive failure.”  She had stayed only 18 days as co-chair of the agency to contain the drug menace besetting the country for so long and here she comes, suddenly championing herself as an expert—in the process unashamedly asserting a government’s failing grade in the campaign to eradicate, if not minimize, the illegal drug trade.  Where did her data to back up her unsavory allegations come from is a question strikingly similar to that of “Who killed Ninoy Aquino?”  Both have no solid answers because they emanate from unsolvable-like puzzles disguised as queer-as-crazy queries. 

If there’s a lesson learned from Robredo’s actuations, it is that she seems bent on disobeying her sworn duty to work in unity with the administration from Day One that she became vice president.  In effect, she has been the “massive flunker” since July 2016.

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