AFP-NCRCom to take traffic enforcement confab, deputization

Soon arming them with traffic violation receipt (TVR) booklets, more than a hundred members of the Philippine Army will start undergoing traffic management training this week which will eventually make them deputized agents of the Metro Manila Development Authority.

They will be manning roads, streets and intersections inside the Armed Forces of the Philippines general headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo, the Philippine Army camp in Fort Bonifacio, and the Philippine National Police main headquarters in Camp Crame.

MMDA Traffic Enforcement Group chief, Bobby Esquivel, said a battalion of soldiers will undergo seminars and actual traffic enforcement training next week. “They asked us to train them so that they can manage traffic inside camps. Participants are from the National Capital Region Command (NCRCom),” he told The Star in an interview after a meeting with Colonel Arnel Pascual, the Metro Manila-based unit’s deputy chief.

Esquivel said MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando has already approved the program which will eventually form a team-up between the agency and the military.

According to him, the training will take a bout a week including actual traffic enforcement work limited to inside camps only while under the guidance of traffic enforcers who will evaluate their performance and capability and determine if they can be left alone. After being trained, Esquivel said the MMDA will issue TVR booklets to the soldiers that they can use against traffic violators.

“This will not just be traffic enforcement. This will start a team-up,” he added, noting that the agency and the AFP’s NCRCom can actually work hand in hand during disasters, emergencies and even coup attempts.

“During (typhoon) disasters for example, we can help them know where stranded passengers are. Since we are installing cameras along roads, they can also use them during… maybe a coup try,” Esquivel said.

The MMDA will be conducting an ocular inspection of the camps since the training will be conducted in the same areas on a special arrangement instead of having it at the agency’s traffic academy.