Cops for traffic duty

After a week of managing traffic in Metro Manila, the PNP Highway Patrol Group is asking for more personnel to reinforce them. The HPG identified chokepoints along EDSA and in a way improved the flow of vehicles even as they complained that undisciplined drivers of public utility vehicles remain one of the problems.

To beef up its personnel, members of the PNP Special Action Forces (SAF) were called in. I recall the years when traffic in Metro Manila and Cebu was managed by policemen. Traffic was doing well until the policemen were found more in the offices instead of the streets. During the ‘60s in Magallanes Street where I used to live, there was a policeman who manned the traffic in that section. As a child, I helped the assigned policeman manage the traffic light there.

I think the SAF assignment should only be temporary. The police should train more of their men and assign them on the streets. I’ve been an advocate in favor of assigning more policemen on the streets to maintain peace and order. I’m advocating this again, this time for both traffic and peacekeeping duties.

Policemen with their sidearms are more effective in both roles because apparently people respect them more than they do traffic aides in Metro Manila and in Cebu.

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The Commission on Audit affirmed that the Department of Social Welfare and Development failed dismally in its task to distribute relief goods donated to the government for victims of typhoon Yolanda. We’ve seen thousands of storm victims in dire need of help and yet the government was slow in responding.

Millions of dollars poured in from different donor countries to help the typhoon victims. Some even observed the foreign donations came in faster than help from the government. There were also reports that imported relief goods were exchanged with local items while in the warehouses of the DSWD. The response of the government was more political and inefficient, something commonly described by the people as a dismal failure.

The public’s impression has been confirmed by the Commission on Audit. Today there are still families who were Yolanda victims in north Cebu and Leyte who did not receive the P30,000 or P10,000 cash aid under the Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA) program of the government.

This was really lamentable because the need was great. We all hope and pray that no other super typhoon will reach the country because the national government can’t be relied upon to respond to the emergency.

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Another burden in Metro Manila is the closure of the public market in Quezon City because of continued violation of city ordinances especially in sanitation and wanton lack of discipline among market vendors and patrons in keeping a market now considered filthy.

Apparently City Hall has been calling the attention of vendors about their violations for a long time, but went unheeded.

I remember that Carbon Market in Cebu was as bad as Metro Manila’s until the administration of Mayor Michael Rama, through the late barangay captain George Rama, imposed discipline among vendors and stallholders.

Change can happen if the local government has political will. Given the nature of the business, markets are expected to be disorderly and unsanitary if the government leaves them on their own.

I hope vendors and stall owners learn from what is happening in Metro Manila. On our own, let’s clean our markets to ensure they pass sanitation standards of the government and there will be steady supply of fresh and clean food that is good for the people, who will continue to patronize Carbon Market and other public sites in Metro Cebu.