"Jaywalkers" bring in P2M income

CEBU, Philippines - The City Traffic Operations Management (CITOM) had collected more than P2 million last year from fines imposed on people caught violating the Anti-Jaywalking ordinance.

CITOM executive officer Rafael Christopher Yap said the fines could have been more had the 68,200 persons apprehended for violating the provisions of City Ordinance 1814 paid their corresponding fines.

Yap said only 41,521 of them paid fines at P50 each while the 26,679 opted to render civic action after they were given lectures on how to properly cross the street.

There is a move to amend the anti-jaywalking ordinance to increase the fines but while it would mean more revenues for CITOM, Yap is not supporting it.

Councilor Edgardo Labella who chairs the City Council committee on laws said he will not support the move of fellow city legislator Richard “Ritchie” Osmeña because it will affect mostly the low-earning people and the students.

Almost P10 million have increased from the previous year’s income of CITOM but the traffic office worries that they might fail to do well in income generation this year.

Yap said there might not be enough accountable forms for them unless they will be given additional allocation in a supplemental budget.

The accountable forms such as citation tickets, parking tickets and other forms they use for traffic law enforcement were budgeted P3.5 million under 2012 Annual Budget.

CITOM proposed P4.5 million for the purchase of accountable forms that was supposed to last them for the whole year. CITOM collects through the citation tickets and other forms issued to violators and without the forms, they are prohibited to collect fees and fines.

The income of CITOM in 2011 that has reached P61,329,656.41 is owed mostly to the parking fees that earned them P34.3 million and to administrative penalties that earned them P12.4 million.

Other income generators in CITOM are the delivery permit that brought P1.8 million, trisikad fee that earned them P1.4 million, clamping fee with P1.5 million, smoke belching testing fee bringing P2.6 million and police report bringing in P1 million.

CITOM’s income last year was only P52.7 million.

Yap said they aim to earn more but some of their proposed items were slashed like the purchase of two tow trucks at P5 million each, five new patrol cars to cost P1 million each and 10 motorcycles to cost P150,000 each.  (FREEMAN)