Metro mayors endorse MMDA radio franchise

The Metro Manila Council (MMC) has approved a resolution requesting Congress to grant the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) a franchise to operate a radio station, which will reportedly serve as a conduit for information exchange between the agency and the public.

In a recent meeting, the MMC officially sanctioned the application for franchise of the agency to operate its MMDA Traffic AM radio station, which has been on air since late last year, as an effective vehicle to carry out its tasks such as traffic and transport management, flood control, solid waste management, health and environmental improvement and public safety in Metro Manila.

The meeting was presided by MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando and attended by Metro mayors and their duly authorized representatives.

Fernando said in the implementation of these functions under Republic Act 7924, public information and education through the radio station play a vital role to ensure the peoples’ cooperation and compliance with regulatory measures instituted by the agency to address traffic congestion and environmental degradation concerns, and other risks due to natural and man-made hazards.

“The radio station is unique in the sense that it is devoted mostly to traffic, non-commercial, and that motorists and the general public would know first hand and in real time from our enforcers on the streets which roads are hassle-free before they go to work, school or any destination,” he said.

The MMDA’s application for a franchise to operate the MMDA Traffic Radio went through rough sailing last week during a hearing of the House committee on legislative franchise, where several lawmakers aired their misgivings that Fernando might use the radio station since he has declared his presidential bid.

The House committee deferred deliberations on the MMDA’s application in the absence of an MMC approval of the application.

The MMC resolution, however, explicitly states that the radio station will be utilized for information dissemination on the seven-pronged services of the MMDA and shall not be used for political advertisement.

The MMDA had already invested in the equipment and transmitter facilities of the radio station and is currently leasing the airing rights of the Banahaw Broadcasting Co., which is presently under the operational control of the Presidential Commission on Good Government.