MMDA gets wet and wild
Updated 10:05pm (Mla time) Jan 09, 2005
Margaux Ortiz
STAY in designated areas or risk getting wet courtesy of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA).
MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando yesterday announced that the agency would be using rags to wet and discourage pedestrians from blocking the roads and causing traffic jams.
Fernando said blanket-sized rags would be hung "like flags" on the agency's vehicles, which would be deployed on Metro Manila's main roads.
Road discipline "This is a way to discipline pedestrians who refuse to abide by road rules," Fernando said in a phone interview.
He explained, "These pedestrians have become increasingly hardheaded, even occupying as much as two lanes of major roads like Marcos Highway."
However, this wet solution is only part of a heightened MMDA campaign against pedestrians who use the roads instead of sidewalks.
The MMDA chair said he already directed the agency's traffic enforcers to arrest and cite violators for jaywalking.
Fine and a lecture Aside from paying a P100 to P200 fine, which is determined by the local government unit, jaywalkers are gathered in prison vans where they are given a lecture on road rules.
Violators are also made to render community service.
The MMDA chief said he had issued a directive to the agency's traffic enforcers to strictly abide by the "about-face policy."
With the policy, enforcers are directed to focus on the pedestrians instead of the motorists.
"We have forgotten that people, by blocking the roadways, cause more disorder on the streets than the motorists themselves," Fernando said.