ABOUT 6,000 field personnel, including the traffic enforcers, of the Metro Manila Development Authority, will be given P40,000 insurance beginning next year in case of accident while in the line of duty.
MMDA acting chairman Thomas Orbos made this announcement after a private citizen donated the accident insurance to help the agency’s personnel assigned in the field such as traffic enforcers, street sweepers, sidewalk clearing operations and those in the Pasig River Ferry System service.
Orbos, however, refused to identify the generous private individual who, he said, wanted to be anonymous.
“Effective Jan. 1 (2017), our field personnel will be having accident insurance. This person knows the risk of our men and the hazard of working in the field, especially those manning the traffic so he voluntarily helped us but he doesn’t want to be publicized,” said Orbos.
Orbos said his agency is now preparing legal papers and other pertinent documents to be signed by MMDA officials and the private individual.
“We will be having a memorandum for this and we are preparing it,” he added.
Orbos said the MMDA has 8,000 employees and 6,000 of them are working in the field all over the National Capital Region.
Aside from the private individual, a private company also donated 100 units of mobile communication radios to be used by their personnel managing traffic in the metropolis.
Each radio, according to Orbos, costs P10,000.
“There are some who also donated rain coats, jackets and helmets. This goes to show that the private sector are helping us because they know that we are ill-equipped,” the MMDA chief said.
For 2017, the MMDA has been given P2.13 billion, already nine percent higher than its current budget of P1.96 billion.
Of the amount, only P246.65 million was allocated for the agency’s traffic and transport management program.
The new budget will also fund the following programs of the MMDA next year: Solid Waste Disposal and Management (P993.54 million); Flood Control and Sewerage Management (P751.29 million); Pasig River Ferry Service (P119.40 million); and South-West Integrated Provincial Terminal (P19.48 million).
Of the total amount, there was no budget for accident insurance of field personnel.
MMDA officials admitted that lack of budget and equipment hampers the implementation of numerous measures to ease traffic in Metro Manila.