Enforcing Baguio laws

BEHIND THE SCENES

Alfred P. Dizon

Enforcing the law in Baguio is what we may call an exercise in contradiction. Drivers, mostly of public utility vehicles are rude and lack courtesy. They honk at you if you don’t move forward while the light is still red if they are following your vehicle. Meanwhile, the traffic cop doesn’t seem to mind.

               People cross pedestrian lanes even if the light is red which means don’t cross. But when a cop is around, they are cautious. Local folks have a term for it – “tangken ulo.” 

Meanwhile, police direct traffic even if traffic lights are on, confusing drivers on what to follow. The traffic light turns green which means move forward, but the traffic cop motions you to stop with an angry stare .

City councillors are saying they are taking note of such issues and recently passed a number of ordinances they consider vital and transformational.

Among these are the anti-profanity ordinance, provision of basic life support services and personnel trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation for emergency situations in all public and private offices, establishment of women and children's desks in all of the city's 128 barangays, and additional aid to solo parents and their children.

But according to Vice Mayor Edison Bilog, ensuring the laws’ implementation is more important. He said they have now put in place a legislative tracking system (LTS) so the city council can effectively monitor if these ordinances are made known to the public and being implemented.

 "We have institutionalized this now, so that yearly, we are sure the laws we are making are being implemented,” Bilog said as reported by the Philippine News Agency.

Bilog said they write concerned agencies, including the mayor’s office, to inquire why a certain ordinance is not being implemented, and even ask for suggestions “on probable amendments that they want to be done, so that the law will become effective.”

Bilog said the LTS is also a way of reminding the implementing agencies on the existence of the ordinances, so these could be implemented.

He said the LTS has two goals — to let the city council see what ordinances are not being implemented and second, which ordinances need to be amended or abolished.

A staff of the city council research division cited, as an example, the 1988 ordinance on anti-littering and spitting that carries a penalty of P100 or imprisonment of 30-60 days for violators. This was amended in 1995 and further revised in 2006 and in 2011.

In 2018, observations based on the LTS led to yet another recommended revision of the ordinance, thus, the filing of a resolution entitled “Prohibiting the chewing of betel nut and or spitting of betel nut quid or ‘moma' in public places in the city of Baguio in order to promote health and address environmental concerns and providing penalties in violation thereof.”

It was observed that despite earlier ordinances on spitting, the chewing and spitting of betel nut on the road has remained an unpleasant habit among residents of Baguio.

Despite this, pundits are rationalizing the situation saying locals are after all Filipinos wherein they live by the oft repeated phrase – pag may gusut, puedeng lumusot.

To our foreign readers, it simply means, if you can get away with it, do it.