Official says CITOM cars violate traffic

CEBU, Philippines - An executive of the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management admitted feeling awkward to strictly enforce traffic-related laws and ordinances because their own vehicles are not road worthy.

CITOM executive officer Raffy Yap said some of the vehicles assigned to them do not have the proper lighting accessories. Yap said it is shameful for them to apprehend traffic violators when their own vehicles have defective lights.

He said he will coordinate with the General Services Office of the City Hall to fix or to replace the defective lights of all the CITOM-assigned vehicles, including the garbage trucks under the Department of Public Services.

The procedure is that the respective department heads will submit requests for repair or replacement of defective parts of city-owned vehicles to the maintenance section of the City Hall.

GSO personnel said the city has a budget for repairs and replacements of defective parts of the city-owned vehicles. According to them, if there are defective vehicles, it is possible that the concerned department heads were not doing their jobs.

Operatives of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) who are conducting operations everyday against erring drivers in Cebu City and other parts of Metro Cebu have observed that CITOM vehicles are the ones violating the very law they are tasked to implement.

CITOM collected P53,550,736 last year but it showed that 80 percent of it or P33.2 million came from parking fees and only P7.1 million from traffic violations. (FREEMAN)