The Supreme Court has deferred taking action on the petitions filed by lawmakers from Bicol seeking immediate relief in their bid to stop the controversial policy of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority banning provincial buses on EDSA.
Although the petitions filed by AKO Bicol party-list Reps. Ronald Ang and Alfredo Garbin Jr. and Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda were included in the agenda of the SC justices when they resumed regular session on Tuesday after a two-month decision-writing break, the magistrates opted to defer action on their plea for temporary restraining order.
Instead the SC reset the deliberation on this case to their regular session on June 25, an SC insider revealed.
Requesting anonymity due to lack of authority to speak for the Court, the source said that the justices did not see the urgency to act on the petitions filed by the partylist representatives and Salceda last April 29 and May 27, respectively, and on their plea for issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would stop the implementation of MMDA’s Regulation No. 19-002.
The source said the tribunal has not even moved yet to require the MMDA to answer the petitions and file its comment.
The MMDA earlier opted to suspend the implementation of the ban and hold further consultation with stakeholders, but has not set the date when the ban will be enforced.
The petitions specifically sought to strike down the assailed measure, which the MMDA and the Metro Manila Council took to ease traffic in Metro Manila’s main thoroughfare, for violating the 1987 Constitution and existing laws.
They cited the lack of “consultations with the public regarding the issue and should have heard the sides of the owners, bus operators, and especially the passengers that will be greatly affected with the implementation of the said regulation.”
The group also alleged that the regulation that has affected thousands of passengers from the provinces was void from the beginning and should have not taken effect simply because it is an exercise of police power that the MMDA and MMC do not possess.
They said that police power is a legislative act, which means the ban on provincial buses and closure of bus terminals along EDSA necessitated enactment of ordinances by individual local government units that have police power under the Local Government Code of 1991.
The petitioners also said that the regulation was an invalid exercise of such authority as it is not reasonably necessary to achieve the purpose of solving perennial traffic problems in the metropolis.
They cited the annual average daily traffic in 2017, which showed that an average of 367,738 vehicles traverse EDSA daily, with 67 percent or 247,527 of these vehicles being private motor vehicles (with 60 percent-70 percent or an average of 148,516 to 185,645 private motor vehicles per day are single occupancy vehicles) while city buses, plying along EDSA with an average of 12,000 units daily and only around 3,300 provincial buses.
The AKO Bicol officers further argued that the planned closure of provincial bus terminals would violate Public Service Act and related laws that require public utility operators to maintain their own terminals as requisite for their franchises.
They also told the Court that the MMDA ban on provincial buses on EDSA was an unwarranted encroachment of the authority of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board to issue, amend and revoke certificates of public convenience to public utility vehicles.
In pleading for issuance of TRO, they cited clear and irreparable damages of the assailed ban not only to petitioners and their constituents but to thousands of affected commuters as well.