No-contact apprehension and the No Garage-no Vehicle bill

tWo street related events made headlines recently. one is the no-contact apprehension Program (ncap) now being implemented in several Metro Manila cities and is being met with complaints especially from the public transport groups. the other one is the proposed “no Garage-no vehicle” bill coming from the House of Representatives. Both programs definitely are alleviation measures to our present transport situation, but honestly both of these would need a second pass and might need some implementation and orientation re-alignments. Sometimes good intentions are not enough but rather an honest in-depth dive into the hearts and minds of the constituents they do want to help must also be in order.

No-contact apprehension is nothing new in the Philippines, with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and the private tollway concessionaires operating this technology-aided traffic enforcement program for some years already and with some amount of success. The current noise on NCAP, however, comes from the ones being implemented by several Metro Manila local government units (LTO), namely: Manila, Parañaque, Valenzuela, Muntinlupa, Marikina and now Quezon City. Common complaints on NCAP are: the exorbitant violation fines with some complainants claiming to be charged up to P100,000 for a month’s violations; the onus of violations on the registered vehicle owner and not on the driver following the “registered owner rule”; and the issue on the need settle fees, even without the benefit of adjudication prior to the Land Transportation Office registration of vehicles. It must be noted that most of these

Given that such no-contact apprehension is being considered already by other LGUS, I would like to recommend that standard operating guidelines be set, to be discussed and agreed upon by the DILG, DPWH, DOTR and the MMDA, in order for this to be interoperable and seamless with other similar systems providers in the future.

LGU NCAP programs are operated by private companies through a public-private partnership scheme. Though such PPP arrangements are legal, a consultative review of the terms of engagement, with the affected stakeholders will do no harm. This will, at the very least, clarify lingering questions such as: W ho decided on the revenue sharing ratio and the rate of the fees? How clear to the road users are the violations in lieu of the push for revenue generation by the private entity? How transparent and responsive is the adjudication process? Who will own the data given the sensitive data of private citizens, now passing through a private entity? And finally, is it really necessary to give the authority of enforcement to a private company that LGUS can very well do and spend for? And given that such no-contact apprehension is being considered already by other LGUS, I would like to recommend that standard operating guidelines be set, to be discussed and agreed upon by the DILG, DPWH, DOTR and the MMDA, in order for this to be interoperable and seamless with other similar systems providers in the future.

The next street item that caught my attention is the proposed “No Garage-no Registration” measure, requiring the proof of a garage space before vehicles are registered by the LTO. This proposed law, while logical and reasonable given our stressed roads with parked vehicles occupying both sides of the street, is very much discriminatory. If you really look at the situation, the ones who will be hit hard by this proposed law are our working class, not the elites in our society who have a very different reason for the spillover of vehicles on the wide upscale village avenues. The working class, those living in the crowded projects in our cities and whose reason for buying that extra vehicle parked on their narrow streets is due to the lack of public transport. They are not vintage car collectors even if what they have are second hand rundown

vehicles. Solve the shortage of public transport and the need for an extra vehicle will be gone. Look at the working class neighborhoods in Hong Kong or Singapore. Most of their houses even have no garages nor are there parked vehicles on the streets. No need—because of their adequate and efficient public transport. There will be a time for this law, but not now. In the meantime, while waiting for the completion of those promised mega transport projects, why don’t our congressmen use their power of the purse to provide public parking at the barangay level. Convert those barangay basketball courts, plazas or empty lots into mixed-use parking buildings that can even be used for their constituents’ weddings or funeral wakes now being held in their barangay roads. So a fair advise to our public officials pushing for the no garage policy now, better think twice. You will be hitting the working class, whose votes you will need in your re-election.

There are so many problems on our roads—most of which had been there several administrations ago. But throwing solutions left and right without careful consideration of the constituents and/or commuters that are supposed to be emancipated, can only make the situation worse. We are already in a transport quicksand, and kneejerk solutions will only worsen our sad plight on the road.