Eagle-eyed MMDA workers to monitor traffic cameras

MMDA and DLSU-CSB: Working together to improve the lives of PWDs as well as traffic management. Jovic Yee

DUE TO their heightened visual senses, 10 hearing-impaired persons have been hired by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to help man its traffic monitoring center to better catch erring motorists and unscrupulous traffic enforcers.

MMDA general manager Tim Orbos said the decision to complement the agency’s personnel with the 10 graduates of De La Salle University-College of Saint Benilde (DLSU-CSB) was not only geared toward providing equal work opportunities to persons with disabilities (PWD) but also harness their innate strengths.

According to Orbos, studies showed that hearing-impaired individuals have a heightened sense of sight which is crucial in the MMDA’s task of monitoring traffic flow and apprehending violators.

“This would really help us as a redundant measure. The [personnel] monitoring [traffic] will still be there but they will now be enhanced with the help of our [PWD] brothers,” Orbos said during the signing of the memorandum of agreement with DLSU-CSB on Monday.

Over the next two weeks, Orbos said the new-hires would undergo training on managing the Metrobase’s network of closed-circuit television cameras installed on several roads in Metro Manila, including Edsa. At the same time, MMDA personnel will be given a crash course on basic sign language so they can better communicate with the PWDs.

A deaf awareness workshop will also be conducted to ensure that the new hires and former workers at the agency will be “at ease with each other.”

Nicky Perez, dean of the School of Deaf Education and Applied Studies, said that the partnership they have with the MMDA was a small effort to helping hearing-impaired individuals “become productive citizens so they can contribute to national development.”