“BETTER LATE than never,” as the saying goes.
Effective next year, the city government will implement the collection of parking fee in certain streets in the city.
According to City Transport and Traffic Management Office (CTTMO) chief Dionisio Abude, his office and all the enforcement arms of the city will implement City Ordinance No. 052, Series of 2013, the ordinance that amended Ordinance No. 153-A, Series of 1990, entitled “An Ordinance imposing parking fees on all vehicle owners/drivers for using certain street in Davao City as Parking Spaces and for other purposes.”
This is the first time the ordinance will be implemented since it was approved in 2013, Abude said.
If my memory serves me right, City Ordinance No. 153-A, Series of 1990 on parking fees was first implemented immediately after it was passed in all major city streets.
At first, the implementation of the parking fee ordinance resulted to increase in revenues, and at the same time, eliminated watch-your-car boys who collected parking fees for themselves.
But upon discovery that a City Hall employee issued his own parking fee tickets instead of using the city’s issued tickets, the parking fee implementation was temporarily suspended.
While it took the city government almost three decades to re-impose the parking fee ordinance planned on the first working day of January next year, this may be a stern warning to many establishment owners that claim the spaces of the streets facing their establishments as privately owned, placing signage or chairs for their exclusive use.
With parking fees ranging from P10 to P100 for the first two hours for light and heavy vehicles, and P2 to P5 for bicycle and motorcycle, also for the first two hours, let us see if these abusive establishment owners will continue doing the illegal practice.
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Now that President Duterte himself lauded the successful implementation of the road clearing program throughout the country by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the local government units (LGUs) and let the implementers sustain the program until his term expires, it’s now for the LGUs to continue what they have started and not just sleep on their laurels.
In a statement, DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said the road clearing is now a regular program of the government and the DILG will conduct quarterly validation of the operations of all LGUs this December.
That’s nice to hear but let us wait if the words will be put into action as this is not the first that we heard promises that often ended without results.
Since the President wants to sustain the program until his term ends in 2022, may I suggest that this be continued even if President Duterte is no longer around and a new leader occupies Malacanang.
Just like in a household, even if the head of the family is no longer around, the mother continues the task of providing a better life for the children.
Life must go on because God created this world and HE never says that when someone dies in the family the rest must also stop living.
I hope our present government officials should not only think of today but also the future of this country and its people as well.
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My very active District 2 Councilor Danny Dayanghirang is calling for the participation of the public in reporting erring public officials and other city personnel.
“I am urging the public to report any corruption committed by our employees of the city,” he said. “We may be losing hundreds of millions. You can just imagine, we have 45 thousands accounts of business permits, and the massive developments where assessment is to be made,” he continued.
Yes, it’s everybody’s responsibility – the private sector and the government to safeguard the people’s money and to report anomalies. But since the Councilor is already in the government, it will be easy for him to do the first move and not wait for the public to act on it.
He himself admitted that “people are afraid to expose corrupt government officials because they might be at risk.”
Not only that Councilor. There were instances in the past and even today, when people who expose public officials’ shenanigans are asked to gather the evidence to support the complaint instead of an investigation by the concerned agency. The work is passed on to the complainant. Kapoy na! (Dan, regards to Dra. Cristine-LDT)
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