More local government units are joining forces with the Metro Manila Development Authority in connection with the campaign to reclaim and clear all public roads of obstruction.
On Monday morning, the MMDA led by chairman Danilo Lim and local government officials in Caloocan City led the clearing operations in Bagong Barrio.
In a related development:
• A leader of the House of Representatives expressed elation over the freeze ordered by a court on the implementation of a provincial bus ban on Epifanio delos Santos Avenue, Metro Manila’s premier thoroughfare.
The Regional Trial Court in Quezon City last week issued a temporary restraining order that stopped the MMDA from implementing the ban effective until after the courts have taken final action on this controversial policy cooked up by the MMDA in an effort to ease traffic on EDSA.
Deputy Speaker Luis Raymond Villafuerte, who last week filed House Resolution 165 seeking a congressional inquiry into MMDA Regulation 19-002, said the chamber should go ahead with this proposed investigation in the hope that lawmakers could eventually craft new legislation that would help authorities solve the worsening traffic congestion plaguing EDSA and the rest of Metro Manila.
MMDA general manager Jose Arturo Garcia Jr., Caloocan City Mayor Oscar Malapitan and Vice Mayor Macario Asistio also supervised the removal of obstructions on the sidewalks.
Lim acknowledged that longer-term solution to the traffic problem was the infrastructure projects under the “Build, Build, Build” program of the administration but “clearing roads off obstructions is one way to solve the traffic while waiting for these permanent solutions.”
Malapitan, for his part, stressed the importance of the barangays taking their part into the clearing drive and expressed the need to act collectively.
During the operations, two barangay halls encroaching on the sidewalks were dismantled and demolished while some owners of private establishments were given the warning to remove fixtures which were already on the streets.
Garcia, on the other hand, talked to a group of vendors and discussed to them the plan to eliminate all road obstructions and proposal to give them a permanent place where they would be allowed to sell.
In the afternoon, Lim, together with San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora walked at the sidewalks of Annapolis in Greenhills to post ‘No Parking’ signages and to inform car owners of the sidewalk parking prohibition.
Zamora has suspended all roadside pay parking and one side parking of the city and barangays including those in Mabuhay Lanes in accordance to the President’s order.
He also assured motorists and car owners that there was enough parking space at the Greenhills Shopping Center and there are 24-hour parking buildings within the city.
He is also mulling to give incentives to private landowners who will volunteer to make use of their land as parking spaces.
Lim is definite that all roads will be cleared within the 60-days order of the Department of Interior and Local Government.
“We’ve seen all Metro mayors cooperating and working together. I believe that in two month’s time, we will see the outcome of all these clearing operations and make all roads obstruction-free,” he said.
Villafuerte said: “With this temporary relief coming from QC RTC Branch 223, the MMDA needs to deep-freeze Regulation 19-002 and wait for the final decision of the courts on the separate petitions seeking a permanent halt to this supposed traffic decongestion plan.”
He added: “In the meantime, the House needs to go ahead on studying this MMDA directive with an eye on eventually writing new legislation that would help authorities come up with measures to genuinely decongest not just EDSA but the rest of Metro Manila as well.”
The congressman from Camarines Sur has been a vocal critic of MMDA’s provincial bus ban on EDSA because many of the passengers to be affected are his constituents who go to Metro Manila by bus.
Under the MMDA scheme, provincial buses will be required to terminate trips at designated areas at the periphery of Metro Manila. From there, passengers, most of them lugging heavy baggage including sacks of rice and live poultry and pigs, will have to transfer to other means of transportation to reach their eventual destinations in the metropolis.
QC RTC Branch 223 Judge Caridad Walse Lutero on Friday issued a writ of preliminary injunction to stop the MMDA from carrying out the scheme.
Lutero said she found merit in the petitions filed by various groups because the MMDA and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) had apparently abused their police power in altering the routes of the provincial bus companies and ordering the closure of their EDSA terminals without first conducting adequate consultations with the affected stakeholders.
Similar arguments were presented by Villafuerte in HR 165 as he last week called on the MMDA to slam the brakes on what he described as this “anti-poor and anti-small business” plan.
Villafuerte and his son, CamSur Gov. Miguel Luis Villafuerte, had made a joint appeal to the MMDA to do away with this plan pending final action by the Supreme Court, claiming that: “The ban is facing complaints from thousands of commuters as the move would be cumbersome, costly, and time-consuming for passengers who usually carry with them heavy pieces of luggage when traveling to Metro Manila and back to their provinces,”
Villafuerte said in HR 165 that only the concerned local governments could implement the ban because Republic Act 7924, which created the MMDA, did not grant the body with legislative powers.
He added that the ban will not ease traffic congestion on EDSA, given that MMDA’s 2007 figures showed that only 3,300 provincial buses pass through this road compared with the 12,000 city buses and more than 247,000 private vehicles that traverse it daily.
