3,000 jaywalkers caught

Nearly 3,000 jaywalkers in the metropolis were apprehended last month by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) in the agency’s renewed campaign against jaywalking.

More than half of them were caught in the vicinity of the busy EDSA and Aurora Boulevard intersection in Cubao, Quezon City, said Angelito Vergel de Dios, executive director of the MMDA Traffic Operations Center (TOC).

Violators were held in a prison van where lecturers from the MMDA’s education division gave a refresher course on rules and regulations.

"The humiliation and inconvenience of having to stay in a prison van is punishment enough for them," Vergel de Dios told reporters.

Noting the high number of violators, Vergel de Dios said this reflected the Filipinos’ habit of disregarding loading and unloading signs to suit their own convenience, such as intersections.

This was why in Cubao, he said, many of the violators were commuters who disregarded the pedestrian barriers the MMDA installed to discourage public utility buses (PUBs) and commuters from turning the intersection into a terminal.

Vergel de Dios said future violators run the risk of being apprehended by both the MMDA and the traffic enforcers of the LGUs, which means that aside from enduring the prison van, they would also have to pay the fines and meet the penalties imposed by the local government. — Nikko Dizon