Bill seeks harsher penalties for road rage

Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo: Anti-road rage bill. Photo from congress.gov.ph

MANILA, Philippines–A day after seeking a lifetime ban on the Maserati driver who mauled a traffic enforcer, Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo has filed an anti-road rage bill that will impose stiffer penalties against those he termed “monsters on wheels.”

Castelo filed House Bill No. 4910 to amend the Revised Penal Code and include road rage as an aggravating circumstance. “Road rage can lead to altercations, assaults or collisions that result in injuries or even deaths,” he said.

In his explanatory note, Castelo defined road rage as “aggressive or angry behavior by a driver of an automobile or other road vehicle.”

Castelo described such behavior as “rude gestures, verbal insults, deliberately driving in an unsafe or threatening manner or making threats.”

Castelo’s bill will punish drivers with a minimum six-month suspension of their license.

On Sunday, Castelo urged authorities to impose a lifetime ban on Joseph Russel Ingco, the driver of the Maserati who mauled a Metropolitan Manila Development Authority traffic constable.

Castelo, chair of the House committee on Metro Manila development, said a perpetual driving ban on Ingco would “serve as a lesson for hot-tempered motorists to refrain from unnecessarily venting their ire on traffic enforcers.”

Castelo said Ingco deserved the maximum punishment because this kind of “monsters on wheels make the streets dangerous for other people.”

Meanwhile, Ingco reportedly had two gun licenses registered with the Philippine National Police but these had expired.

Ingco owned a Glock 9-mm pistol and a high-powered Bushmaster rifle based on a check with the PNP Firearms and Explosives’ Office (FEO).

Data from the FEO’s Firearms Information Management System showed that Ingco, with registered address at Valencia Hills, New Manila, in Quezon City, had expired licenses for the two firearms.

The license for the Glock was approved in August 2009 and expired in June 2011, while the Bushmaster license was approved in September 2010 and expired in June 2012.

A police source said it was unclear if the firearms were sold or transfered to new owners.