Only 12 of PH towns, cities have complied with local speed limit

CEBU CITY –– Only 12 out of the thousands of cities and municipalities in the Philippines complied with a national government memorandum to enact local speed limit ordinances in their areas of jurisdiction, a non-government organization said.

Rochel Bartolay, communications officer of road safety advocate ImagineLaw, said road crash incidents continued to rise and many of these were blamed on speeding vehicles which may be prevented if speed limits were imposed locally.

The Joint Memorandum Circular dated January 17, 2018, issued by the Department of Transportation, Department of Interior and Local Government, and the Department of Public Works and Highways want all LGUs to adopt guidelines for classification of roads, setting speed limits, and the collection of road crash data.

The order from the three national government agencies wanted the local governments to comply within six months.

Administrative sanctions

“Failure to comply with this Joint Memorandum Circular may subject the liable officer to administrative sanctions,” the circulated stipulated.

Upon monitoring from ImagineLaw, Bartolay said only 12 towns or cities have complied. These include Quezon City in Metro Manila, Danao City in Cebu, Bontoc town in Mt Province, General Mariano Alvarez in Cavite, General Trias in Cavite,  Antipolo in Rizal Province, Pagbilao in Quezon Province, Ginubatan in Albay, Balatan in Camarines Sur, Santa Maria in Laguna, Consolacion in Cebu, and Juban in Sorsogon.

The Philippines has 145 cities and 1,489 municipalities. This means, there are 1,622 towns and cities that have yet to comply with the order.

ImagineLaw, according to Bartolay is collaborating with the Land Transportation Office and even created a template ordinance which can be used by the local legislators in enacting ordinances to comply with the JMC.

They also formulated a template for reporting crash data.

Challenges

In the case of Juban in Sorsogon and General Mariano Alvarez in Cavite, the towns have already enacted speed limits. But, the two towns are having problems in implementing their approved measures.

Juban councilor Achilles Alindogan said the local government still did not have the appropriation needed to purchase the equipment and hire the personnel needed to monitor vehicles especially in the Maharlika Highway, where most of the trucks going to the Visayas pass through.

General Mariano Alvarez town Councilor Archie Sambrano said they still did not have the speed guns needed to implement their local speed limit ordinance, especially at the Congressional Road.

Both local governments have asked the Department of Transportation for assistance but they had yet to receive a reply.

Bartolay said ImagineLaw would launch in September an online site “dahandahansadaan.com” so people would know which local governments have and have not complied with the local speed limits.

Anyone can access the color-coded mapping website and can download the templates in creating the ordinance./lzb