The Lower House has approved on third and final reading the bill that grants emergency powers to the Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to address the long-standing problem of traffic gridlock in Metro Manila and other urban areas in the Philippines.
Lawmakers on December 3 passed House Bill (HB) No. 6425 with a vote of 188 yeses, eight nays, and no abstention after the bill passed second reading just six days earlier, on November 27.
HB 6425, or the Traffic Crisis Act of 2017, is a substitute bill for several bills filed in the Lower House seeking to solve the perennial traffic in Metro Manila and other urban areas.
DOTr in 2016 had asked Congress to grant President Rodrigo Duterte emergency powers to resolve the transportation woes in Metro Manila and nearby provinces. Several bills in both houses of Congress were then submitted granting either Duterte or the DOTr chief the requested emergency powers.
Under HB 6425, the state aims to establish a strong primary policymaking, planning, programming, coordinating, implementing, regulating, and enforcement authority under the control and supervision of the DOTr that will be vested with exclusive powers to control, manage, and regulate land-based traffic and structures in Metropolitan Manila, Metropolitan Cebu, and Metropolitan Davao.
If the bill is passed into law, the emergency powers will be valid for three years, “unless sooner withdrawn by a joint resolution of Congress.”
The DOTr secretary is designated as the de officio traffic chief with full power and authority to streamline the management and authority of traffic and transportation, and to control road use in the three metropolitan areas.
During the effectivity of the proposed law, the traffic chief shall have the power to supervise and control the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA); Philippine National Police-Highway Patrol Group; Land Transportation Office; Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board; Road Board; all other executives agencies, bureaus, and offices with functions related to land transportation regulation; and Metropolitan Cebu Traffic Coordinating Council (CTCC) and Davao Traffic Administrator (both of which will be created under the proposed law).
The traffic chief shall also supervise all local government units within the metropolitan areas regarding the enforcement of rules, regulations, policies, and programs enacted under the proposed law in order to harmonize and enforce all traffic rules and regulations, and implement the proposed law and the unified traffic system throughout each of the metropolitan areas, including the entry into and exit from such areas.
The traffic chief, in coordination with the covered agencies, shall develop and issue a comprehensive traffic rules and regulations handbook for the metropolitan areas which, among others, identifies traffic-related violations and offenses and imposes corresponding graduated penalties.
The traffic chief shall, in consultation with affected private stakeholders, the MMDA, the CTCC, and Davao Traffic administrator, as the case may be, formulate a separate traffic management plan (TMP) for each metropolitan area. The TMP must sufficiently detail concrete steps to be taken to alleviate immediately and effectively the traffic crisis in the metropolitan areas in a measurable or quantifiable manner.
Further, the traffic chief, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, and directors of DOTr, as well as the officers of the MMDA, CTCC, the Cebu Traffic Coordinator, and the Davao Traffic Administrator “shall be required to take at least once a week a mode of public transportation, whether land, rail, or maritime, primarily used by the masses, in order to monitor the traffic crisis during the effectivity of this Act.”
In implementing the proposed law, no other court except the Supreme Court may issue a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction against the government or any of its subdivisions, officials or any person or entity, whether public or private, acting under government direction.
The counterpart bill in the Upper House, Senate Bill No. 1284, which covers Metro Manila and Metro Cebu, is still waiting for second-reading approval.
