Makati City Mayor Abigail Binay has assured members of the city’s Public Safety Department of granting them better benefits in the coming days.
On Saturday, Binay attended the general inspection of the PSD at the South Cembo Covered Court where around 1,000 department personnel dressed in their new blue-and-gray uniforms were gathered.
The mayor exhorted the law enforcement deputies to strive for excellent performance, assuring them of the full support of her administration.
Aside from new uniforms, ongoing capability-building programs, and incentives being provided by the city government, Binay also vowed to push for the granting of hazard pay to PSD personnel.
Also present at the assembly was new Makati City Police Station chief Senior Supt. Rogelio Simon, who called for strong collaboration between the Makati Police and PSD.
To date, PSD has 1,101 personnel consisting of 394 regular and 707 casual employees.
The PSD personnel were responsible for the apprehension of more than 45, 000 erring motorists cited for various traffic violations in the city in the first quarter of the year.
The PSD recorded a total of 45,199 traffic violations from January to March. Of these number, 10,846 citation tickets were issued for Disobedience to Traffic Control Signs and Signals; 7,331 for Disregarding Lane Markings; and 5,764 for Illegal Parking.
More than 150, 000 erring motorists were also cited for various traffic violations during the series of road safety and clearing operations conducted by the PSD in 2017. Because of these operations, the city government collected at least P47 million in fines.
Meanwhile, Binay called on community leaders to do their part in the citywide campaign for safe and walkable streets, particularly by closely monitoring areas already cleared by the PSD teams and ensuring that these remain free of any obstruction.
“Our efforts would be futile if the concerned barangay captains and other officials fail to perform their basic duty of maintaining clean and orderly streets in their respective jurisdictions,” Binay said.
She reminded barangay officials that under the Local Government Code, they would be liable for negligence and dereliction of duty should they allow previously cleared areas to be blocked again by vehicles, objects and illegal structures.