QUEZON City Mayor Herbert Bautista on Tuesday vetoed a proposed ordinance requiring the installation of dashboard cameras in marked police vehicles of the Quezon City Police District.
In his veto message, Bautista said “he is constrained to return the proposed ordinance without affirmative action on the ground that it violated the rule which provides that all funding requirements should pass through the budgeting process.”
Under the proposed measure, funding “shall be taken from any available funds of the city, otherwise unappropriated, or from the grants and subsidy account of the Office of the Mayor.”
“The authority granted to the chief executive to procure such equipment through negotiation, if such is permissible, can also be validly done in accordance with the provisions of Republic Act 9184, otherwise known as the Government Procurement Reform Act,” Bautista said.
The law requires public bidding as a preferred mode of award.
Bautista said the proposed measure also failed to provide the rules “in the appreciation of evidence gathered by these devices.”
As provided under the Rules on Electronic Evidence, “Audio, photographic and video evidence of events, acts or transactions shall be admissible provided it shall be shown, presented or displayed to the court and shall be identified, explained or authenticated by the person who made the recording or by some other person competent to testify thereof.”
Apart from failure to provide rules in the appreciation of evidence, Bautista said, the proposal also failed to comply with the provisions of the Republic Act 10173, or the Data Privacy Act of 2012.
Moreover, the measure was not able to provide the prescribed minimum standard or specifications for the procurement or installation of dashboard cameras.
“Such would include resolution, image sensor, viewing angle, aperture, display type and size, among others,” the mayor said.
District 3 Councilor Gian Carlo Sotto, the measure’s author, said he saw the need to equip law enforcers with state-of-the-art monitoring devices to help beef up the city’s anti-crime drive.
From July 2010 to October 2016, the city council has already approved 504 ordinances, 34 of which the mayor vetoed.