Brgys told to enforce city ordinance vs noise

With the arrival of the fiesta season, the Cebu City Council called on the Association of Barangay Councils to strictly implement the city's anti-noise ordinance in the city barangays.

The council said there is the high probability of noise permeating the evenings, especially as fiesta season is often accompanied by the customary nightly discos and playing loud music that violates City Ordinance No. 309 or the anti-noise ordinance.

And because these activities usually cater to the young, the council is equally concerned that they last until the wee hours of the morning and unduly cause public disturbance.
“It is the observation that the dusk-to-dawn operations or the conduct of the loud and deafening disco sounds would last until 3 a.m. or even 5 a.m., which is an open defiance of the anti-noise ordinance,” the council said.

Councilor Arsenio Pacaña has proposed that activities like these should only be limited to until midnight. 
Pacaña said there is a need to adopt a sort of “balancing act” because while there should be merrymaking during the fiesta season, loud deafening sounds “should be tempered at 12 midnight so as not to unduly cause public disturbance”.

He said discos and any other activities that utilize deafening sounds not only cause general public disturbance but specifically cause sleepless nights on the part of the older members of the community.

The implementation, the council said, lies primarily in the hands of the barangay officials.

“It is hereby resolved to remind all barangays in the City of Cebu through the Association of Barangay Councils to adopt a common ground in the enforcement of the city’s anti-noise ordinance, and to consider in their agenda the adoption of uniform early time schedule for night discos for all barangays in the city, including a compromise time to temper the sound as early as 12 midnight for the common good and welfare of the constituents in the barangay,” the council said.  – Joeberth M. Ocao/BRP