Manila council to ban motel, inn billboards

The mutual endorsement days of Manila lawmen and motels appear doomed as the Manila City council is set to pass an ordinance banning their signs from conspicuous places in Manila.

The ordinance was supposed to undergo second reading last week but council sessions Tuesday and Thursday were postponed due to lack of quorum.

The ordinance is titled "An ordinance banning billboards, posters, stickers, outdoor advertisements of motels, hotels, pensions, inns, installed on telephone or electric posts, trees, and paid up advertisement spaces, atop taxis, housetops .... along public places and streets . . . which corrupt or tend to corrupt. . . the mind of minors into sex and eventually ruin the moral fiber and values of the youth."

It was authored by the same councilor, Danilo Varona, who worked for the passage of the ordinance prohibiting stage dancing in bikinis and other skimpy attire in the city.

Varona, in an earlier interview, said he conceived of the ordinance when he noticed the proliferation of motel promotion signs offering discounts.

"I also noticed that some police signs carry the names of motels as sponsors or as the ones who made them," Varona said.

There have been persistent rumors that dropping the names of certain police officials in some motels could get a substantial discount.

The measure was proposed because motels are "openly commercializing such establishments with reasonable prices that even minors can afford to avail and use and habitually engage in premarital sex which results in destroying the moral fiber and values of the youth as well as their future."

Many motels and inns are found in Sta. Mesa, Quiapo, Sta. Cruz, Malate, Ermita and the university belt

Aside from the alleged moral hazards of the proposed ordinance, Varona said, "such billboards, posters, stickers, outdoor advertisements, are an eyesore to the citizenry as well as to the constituents of Manila, weakening the moral foundation of good Filipino customs." Varona is a Baptist Church preacher.

The measure provides fines of P5,000 to P10,000 with accompanying prison terms of one year and two years, respectively.

However, it is expected to be revised after the Council’s committee on laws pointed out that city councils can only provide a maximum fine of P5,000.

It also advised that the ordinance clarify the phrase "which corrupt or tend to corrupt . . . the mind of minors into sex and eventually ruin the moral fiber and moral value of the youth. . ." It said such a broad statement may be taken as an impairment of the rights of motels and a restraint of trade, expression, and the right to advertise, as provided for in the Constitution.– Jose Aravilla