MMDA pushes single ticket system for Metro Manila

Noting that the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is the only government agency vested with the power to implement a Single Ticketing System (STS) in the metropolis, the agency’s legal department chief yesterday opposed the idea of letting Metro Manila mayors enact a Uniform Traffic Management Code (UTMC) just so they could impose their own version of the scheme.

Lawyer Emmanuel de Castro said the Metro Manila Council (MMC), a group composed of Metro Manila’s local chief executives and MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando as chairman, said a so-called Unified Ticketing System using Ordinance Violation Receipts (OVR) is not the same as an STS.

According to De Castro, allowing Metro Manila mayors to enact a UTMC and implement a UTS will allegedly violate the provisions of law since it runs counter to the spirit of President Arroyo’s EO 712 and Republic Act 7924 which gives the agency the authority to specifically implement an STS in the metropolis.

De Castro said the agency cannot relinquish its mandated duty or let the MMC take away the vested enforcement right of the agency to perform its functions and powers under the law by honoring a UTMC. He said that the problem arises from the MMC’s misinterpretation of Section 5 (f) of RA 7924 which provides, among others, that the MMDA shall install and administer an STS in relation to traffic violations.

“RA 7924 does not provide for a technical definition of STS. It is obviously the intent of the law to provide just one ticket to be issued to an errant motorist regardless which local government unit apprehended him,” he said, adding that the MMC should have drafted its resolution in accordance with EO 712 and RA 7924 and should not have substituted its own version of the STS.

De Castro expressed his opinion in the wake of the insistence of LGU representatives comprising the technical working group that is drafting the implementing rules and regulations of the proposed resolution adopting a UTMC as the uniform set of traffic rules and regulations to be enforced in Metro Manila with the OVR as the unified ticketing system to be used in apprehending violators of traffic rules during its meeting on April 15.

De Castro said that gleaning from the preamble of the mayors’ proposed resolution, it contradicts itself because of some inconsistencies.

The proposed resolution’s preamble, quoting a Supreme Court decision in the Garin case, allegedly states that the MMDA does not possess police power which means that it cannot enact ordinances, rules and regulations. However, the same resolution supposedly mandates the MMC to issue the corresponding IRR in accordance with applicable laws which, he said, is clearly a legislative function.

He also said RA 7924 expressly grants the MMDA the powers to perform planning, monitoring, coordinating and implementing functions, and exercise regulatory and supervisory authority over the delivery of metro-wide services.

These, he said, is in accordance with national government policies without diminution of the LGU’s autonomy concerning purely local matters which is the same with EO 712 which expressly directs the MMDA to implement the STS in the National Capital Region.

De Castro furthered that the proposed resolution by Metro Manila mayors for the UMTC does not provide for the implementation of an STS within Metro Manila but for a “unified” or “common” ticketing system. He also stressed that the MMDA Charter, in relation to the Local Government Code, is a law of general application because RA 7924 is not only a special law but also a later enactment.

“The ratio decidendi of RA 7924 is the installation of a single-ticketing system, not a unified ticketing system,” he said.

The issue of implementing an STS in Metro Manila gained momentum earlier this month after transport groups staged a strike to demand the implementation of the same.

The protest action was eventually pacified after drivers and operators were promised that such a system will be put in place within 30 days.

However, Metro Manila mayors allegedly bullied MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando and, instead of adopting the MMDA’s STS, decided that they want their own version of the same.