Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chairman Romando Artes. —Arnel Tacson/INQUIRER.net file photo
The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) on Tuesday said it would deputize the traffic enforcers of the 17 local governments in Metro Manila until the end of the year to allow them to continue issuing tickets to errant motorists.
“We have agreed to give local traffic enforcers in Metro Manila provisional authority for now to prevent anarchy on the roads,” MMDA Chair Romando Artes said in a press conference after a special meeting of the Metro Manila Council (MMC), the agency’s policymaking body.
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“It’s very difficult if all traffic enforcers in our cities will stop issuing tickets because the result of that will be intense traffic congestion. If our enforcers will not issue any more tickets to violators, then the drivers will no longer obey them,” said MMC President and San Juan Mayor Francis Zamora.
The decision to deputize local traffic enforcers was prompted by a recent Supreme Court ruling prohibiting them from issuing traffic violators tickets under the Single Ticketing System. The court said they would only be allowed to do so if authorized by the MMDA.
Artes said the MMDA would no longer file a motion for reconsideration as the Office of the Solicitor General advised.
But Zamora said that the cities of Manila, Makati and Mandaluyong would file such a motion as a legal remedy.