CA thumbs down single traffic ticket system

MANILA, Philippines - Local government units of Metro Manila may proceed with their respective ticketing systems after the Court of Appeals (CA) junked a petition by several transport groups questioning the legality of their traffic ordinances.

In a 16-page ruling penned by Associate Justice Edwin Sorongon, the CA’s Sixth Division upheld the legality of the traffic ordinances passed by 14 cities and one municipality of the metropolis from 2003 to 2005.

Citing lack of basis, the CA also junked the request for the issuance of a writ of mandamus to require the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to enforce a “single ticketing system.”

This is contrary to an earlier report of another newspaper that the ruling, in effect, upheld the validity of MMDA’s single ticketing system.

The CA held that the local ordinances were backed up by Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code of 1991.

It dismissed the claim of petitioners that the Ordinance Violation Receipt (OVR) system being implemented by the LGUs violate Section 29 and 62 of Republic Act 4136, which created the Land Transportation Office (LTO) and authorizes the agency to confiscate license of traffic violators; and Section 5 of Republic Act 7924, which created the MMDA, on the agency’s function to enforce traffic laws.

The petitioners argued that the MMDA and LTO already have their own ticketing system, on top of the LGUs’ traffic ordinances.

The court explained that even with the creation of the MMDA in 1995, “the police power granted to the LGUs by the Local Government Code of 1991 was never taken away from them.”