The Anti-Distracted Driving Act (Republic Act 10913) is one of those laws that should be thrown into the dustbin of useless laws.
The law is supposed to minimize injuries, deaths and accidents due to unrestrained use of electronic mobile devices while driving a car, a truck, a bicycle, a motorbike, a tricycle, a pedicab, a kuliglig, a caretela and a kariton. Are there statistics on how many accidents are caused daily by distracted driving because of one’s use of cellphones while driving?
I am sure such stats are no higher than the toll from tokhang and extrajudicial killings perpetrated by the police and vigilantes. The numbers being bandied about are between 4,000 and 9,000 deaths.
And yet, President Duterte says any policeman charged for killing a person while conducting a tokhang or an illegal drugs operations will be protected by him and rewarded with cash, a gun or a promotion. If convicted, said cop will be pardoned. If the policeman is killed in action, Duterte will pay him a visit at his wake.
The six-page (on short bond paper) RA 10913 became law because of the laziness of one president, BS Aquino III, who never bothered to sign the bill. Because he did not sign it, it lapsed into law, per provision of—you better believe it, the Constitution.
Our Senate and our House of Representatives do not need to feel guilty and justify their presence in our midst or their lack of production by producing instead vexatious and useless laws. Our people understand even if it costs taxpayers P8.65 billion a year to pay for the salaries of people in the House and P3.97 billion a year to do the same in the Senate. In fact, it would be better perhaps if the entire Congress stopped enacting laws.
The Philippines already has more than 15,000 laws. These are more laws than people need. More than half of the laws are useless anyway. The 15,000 are enforced or interpreted by more than 35,000 lawyers this country has. Two-thirds of our lawyers either do not practice law or violate the law themselves.
RA 10913 just gives government agencies like the Land Transportation Office (LTO), the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), as well as the traffic enforcement units of various of municipal, city and provincial governments an excuse to mulct from hapless motorists, pedestrians, and people who operate “agricultural machines,” “construction equipment,” tractors, forklifts, motorcycles, pedicabs, kuligligs “and carriages.”
Under the law, if you are on public road and are riding on a horse or a carabao (these animals can count as either “carriages,” “agricultural machines” or “construction equipment”) and you are using a cellphone or any electronic device, you are probably violating the law, and thus are subject to severe punishment, like a fine of P5,000 to P20,000—fines which probably are higher than the retail value of your aging horse or carabao or bike or tricycle. That’s how ridiculous the law is.
If you are driving a funeral car on the way to a cemetery and you start using your cellphone, you will violate the law, no matter how slow you are driving. Because the law says “distraction” is using an electronic device while your vehicle is moving. That’s how ridiculous the law is.
Exempted from the law are, of course, vehicles that in practice are the biggest distractions to drivers and pedestrians—police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks, and “other vehicles providing emergency assistance.” That’s how ridiculous the law is.
I suppose the latter category —“other vehicles providing emergency assistance,” includes “wang-wang” escorts of alleged VIPs, as well as vehicles rushing to their intended destination, to bring a pregnant woman in labor, a seriously ailing patient, and someone who badly needs to take a leak or move his bowel.
The law, by the way, does not define what exactly is an “emergency.” If as a media man while driving, I see a robbery, a murder, or a EJKs ongoing, and I use my cellphone to video it or call authorities, is that distracted driving? And if the robber, the murderer or EJK operator happens to be a policeman—who, between us, is violating the law —he or me? He for being a robber or a killer and me, for being distracted in my driving, by a robber or a killer?
Also, the law seems to imply that you can now operate tricycles and pedicabs on national and major roads. Under a very old law and DILG regulations, tricycles are banned from national roads. Now, under RA 10913, you can operate a tricycle on a national road, provided you don’t use your cellphone while biking.