Smog-machine bogs down city traffic woes surface

By Ramon Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY -- The joke last Tuesday was that smoke-belching vehicles are on the rise since that expensive, top-of-the-line smog pollution measuring machine at the foot of Session Rd. conked out, a casualty of the “Session Road in Bloom” commercial feature of last February’s Baguio Flower Festival.

It was a banter Wilma Lagunilla of the Environmental Management Bureau hardly found amusing after she reported at the weekly meeting of the “Alay sa Kalinisan” how the highly sensitive gadget malfunctioned.

Lagunilla admitted it would take time to repair the gadget, given the stringent bidding procedure and the prohibitive price. Fixing the computerized, box-type machine would cost P800,000.

It lost its bearings when its line of sight with its emitter along Magsaysay Avenue, beside the Centermall, was blocked by commercial booths set up as part of the “Session Road in Bloom”, the EMB official explained.

Lagunilla said the festival organizers, who extended the row of stalls down to the foot of the main street, were told of the problem. “They did not remove the obstruction”, resulting in the machine “not operational since the first week of March”.

Designed to accurately measure the rate of pollution from vehicle exhaust down to what is technically called “parts per million”, the machine was bought several years ago at P10 million. It replaced a much cheaper but less accurate gadget on the same road island where the “Kilometer Zero” marker of the national highway system was also installed.

“How long should we wait (before the machine is repaired and back in operation)?,” asked Romeo Concio, the city’s general services officer who presided over the meeting of the multi-sectoral environmental group at the basketball court of Sto. Nino Barangay.

Lagunilla said provided no timetable, but Concio acknowledged the slow process due to the rigorous procedures provided in the country’s bidding law.

If it’s any consolation, the longer it takes for the gadget to be repaired, the more the EMB would save in maintenance cost, roughly P1.2 million by the end of this month. When it was functioning, the machine was being maintained at P300,000 a month, Lagunilla said.

From the breakdown of the machine, discussions shifted to kinks in the campaign against smoke-belchers and to why the Land Transportation Office continues to register vehicles without private garages.

Contrary to visual perception that it has slowed down, the crackdown on smoke-belchers is still on, assured those assigned to the roadside inspection and monitoring team that conducts random testing of fuel exhaust of diesel and gasoline-engines.

Perfecto Itliong, president of the jeepney federation, reported discrepancies still persist in the standards of private emission testing centers which certify to the roadworthiness of vehicles that subsequently fail when subjected to the city’s testing gadgets.

Itliong noted a dip in the number of public utility vehicles failing tests using the city’s gadgets and an increase among private vehicles. “Private vehicles are now the top violators,” he said.

Mandatory roadside testing, he noted, can only be limited to 70 vehicles per machine per day, as the gadget needs to be cleaned of carbon particles for it to remain accurate in its reading.

“Hindi kaya ng ating makina ang more than 70 (vehicles) a day,” he stressed.

Earlier in the meeting, city councilor Joel Alangsab, the president of the barangay federation, tried to trace the root cause of the proliferation of vehicles parked along roads despite the no-garage, no-registration policy of the Department of Transportation and Communications.

He advised against registering vehicles without garages, saying barangay officials have their arms full trying to clear narrow passageways of illegally parked cars and jeepneys.

Land Transportation Office regional director Teodora Caguicla, however, clarified her office’s approval is ministerial after a vehicle’s papers have been approved by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board.

These documents, she said, include photos of the garage and a certification from the barangay captain that, indeed, the vehicle has its own private, off-road garage or parking space.

In and beyond the “Alay”, the city police continues to receive positive feedback for its enforcement of the city’s anti-smoking ordinance that has reduced the world of cigarette users to small cubicles.

City councilor Fred Bagbagen maintains this effectiveness can expand to enforcement of the “King of the Road” ordinance he authored against motorists lording it over pedestrian lanes. Motorists also swear pedestrians, too, share the blame for the breach in traffic discipline.

Nancy Alabanza, president of the Baguio market vendors federation and its representative to the market authority, focused her report on the use of the city athletic bowl for a “night market” for “wagwag” clothes, shoes and other personal items.

Lack of discipline by some vendors turned some portions of the sports facility into a waste bowl, she reported. Some peddlers refused to pay their fees, claiming business was bad because of bad location and bad weather, she added.

The peddlers, she added, wanted extension, but within the Burnham Park, the site of the controversial “trade fair” of the Association of Barangay Councils that Alangsab said was arranged with businessman Masahiro Okuda.

In his privilege speech explaining the ABC’s side of the deal, Alangsab recommended that the city put an end to trade fairs. He said:

“I have learned my lesson and thus I express that I am one with the Hon. City Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan, the Hon., Vice Mayor Daniel T. Farinas, Hon. Richard Carino and members of the City Council to finally cease to entertain any request for the conduct of any trade fair, in whatever name it could be called, which is not in consonance with the Trade Fair Ordinance of 1994 as amended.

“While we admit that there have been lapses on the part of the ABC Board in the conduct of the Liga ng mga Barangay Fund raising Fair, may I likewise request that all the other tgrade fairs done be looked upon, since there are likewise irregularities, errors and non-compliance with the guidelines just so to erase doubts that only the Lig ng mga Barangay Trade Fair is being investigated by this body notwithstanding that the ABC President is a member of the City Council.”