Personnel from the Philippine National Police—Highway Patrol Group have returned to assist the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority in managing traffic on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue as the holiday season draws near—when traffic flow is expected to be heavy.
MMDA General Manager Jose Arturo Garcia Jr. said the policemen, led by HPG-NCR Traffic Enforcement Unit chief Col. Emmanuel Tabuena, would manage and supervise traffic from Timog Avenue to Ortigas Avenue beginning 5 a.m. on Monday (Sept. 9) with the assistance of 100 MMDA personnel.
Other MMDA traffic enforcers, on the other hand, will man the traffic at EDSA Timog to Balintawak, and Ortigas to Pasay City.
Garcia explained the HPG takeover was done to take advantage of their authority.
He said under the law the HPG was mandated to contribute to crime prevention in addition to traffic enforcement.
“The HPG is a big help in instilling discipline to the motorists,” Garcia said.
He added unlike HPG, the MMDA had no defense when its traffic enforcers were being mauled or hurt by hard-headed motorists.
Tabuena, for his part, said they fully supported the need to discipline erring motorists who, he added, were among contributing factors of traffic problem along EDSA, especially during rush hours.
The HPG men will man the traffic from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. to add to visibility of authorities on the road. They are also deputized to apprehend and issue citation tickets against erring motorists violating illegal parking policy and other traffic rules.
“We want to show that the government is [in] full force to ease the burden of the riding public,” Garcia said.
MMDA officials said the move in deploying HPG men also aimed to augment the existing MMDA traffic personnel in manning the flow of traffic in the area during the peak buying “ber months”—reference to the months of September, October, November and December.
Records showed that traffic volume rises 15 to 20 percent during November and December.
In 2015, the HPG took over from the MMDA the traffic control on EDSA in following the directive of then President Benigno Aquino III, who believed that the presence of armed traffic enforcers would make a big difference.
Aquino came up with the idea after observing that the MMDA could not solve the road congestion along the 23.8-kilometer highway from Monumento Circle in Caloocan City to President Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard in Pasay City.
Former MMDA chairman and now Senator Francis Tolentino had a proposal then to have traffic enforcers equipped with firearms just like the HPG men.
He proposed the issuance of short firearms to some of its traffic enforcers after a series of assault against them along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue and other major streets in the metropolis.
That time, Tolentino said, traffic enforcers encountered violent incidents while performing their duties, and they might need firearms to defend themselves.
But he said traffic enforcers to be armed should be the supervisors (with the ranks traffic enforcer 2 and 3), whom he said were responsible enough to handle and use guns—without defining what responsibility meant.
The MMDA admitted the increase in number of public and private vehicles and undisciplined drivers had mainly causes the monstrous traffic on EDSA.
It added the volume of vehicles on the road could no longer be accommodated by the limited road network in Metro Manila.
According to MMDA spokesperson Assistant Secretary Pircelyn Pialago, vehicles passing through the highway increased by 5.75 percent, or an average of 405,882, for the first eight months this year.
This is an additional 22,054 vehicles as compared to 2018 data, which posted an average of 383,828 vehicles, she said.
Some analysts said to solve traffic congestions in Metro Manila, the government must concentrate on the development and improvement of the public transport system.
