THE Quezon City Council, through a resolution, will study the necessity of imposing sticker fees to owners of public utility tricycles and private vehicles who use roads passing through private subdivisions.
Resolution 6998 called on the City Planning and Development Office and Tricycle Franchising Board to conduct a study on the fees collected if these are indeed income-generating in nature.
The measure was principally introduced by District 6 Councilor Eric Medina
“These fees are not [supposed to be] income-generating but merely for identification purposes only,” Medina said.
The councilor said he received reports of certain subdivisions charging as much as P500 for a sticker fee.
“The amount being collected is indeed a burden to motorists, especially to tricycle drivers who are merely dependent on their measly income,” he noted.
Medina also cited the need for subdivision owners to come up with corresponding board resolutions on the right amount of sticker fees that should be collected.
Meanwhile, a rumbling sound followed by shattering glass will signal the start of the nationwide earthquake drill at Quezon City Hall on Friday.
Sirens will be sounded off at 2 p.m. before employees are evacuated from the buildings and headed into various assembly points within the city hall compound.
Emergency response personnel from the QC Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office, the Department of Public Order and Safety, and the Bureau of Fire Protection as well as the disaster action teams organized in each department will then simulate various crisis scenarios that are expected to happen in case a powerful earthquake gets triggered by the movement of the West Valley Fault.
The West Valley Fault traverses nine barangays in Quezon City—Ugong Norte, White Plains, St. Ignatius, Blue Ridge B, Old Balara, Pansol, Bagumbayan, Batasan Hills, and Bagong Silangan.
“We want to make the situation as real as possible so we’ll be able to make an honest assessment of our state of preparedness,” Karl Michael Marasigan, chief of the Quezon City DRRMO, said.
City hall’s normal business operations will resume after the hour-long drill.
After the evacuation of all city hall buildings and the accounting of personnel, the QC DRRMO will activate its Incident Management Team and set up its Incident Command Center at the city hall flagpole area.
“Mayor Herbert Bautista has given top priority to public safety and the city government’s emergency response and disaster management capability is at its unprecedented peak. The drill will test whether our technical skills match the needs of the city,” Marasigan said.