Dilemma in Cotabato City: To wear or not wear a helmet

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - The city police and the Marine Battalion Landing Team 1 urged Thursday the Land Transportation Office to reconsider their imposition of a “no helmet policy” for local motorists to maximize the prevention of crimes and bombings.

“No disrespect meant. We don’t intend to circumvent a national law, which requires motorcyclists to wear protective crash helmets. We just want protection for the public,” Senior Superintendent Rolen Balquin told reporters.

Balquin was apparently reacting to reports of the “opposition” from LTO officials on the local security policy, imposed after the August 5, 2013 deadly car bomb explosion along Sinsuat Avenue here that left eight people dead and injured more than 30 others.

“The best thing to do now is for us and officials of the LTO to sit down and talk about that,” Balquin said.

Balquin said about 90 percent of the shooting incidents in the city in past months involved motorcycle-riding gunmen whose faces were obscured by protective helmets.

More than 200 people here have been killed by guns-for-hire in one attack after another in the past three years.

There were also reports of how bombers, wearing helmets, managed to transport using motorcycles powerful improvised explosive devices from their lairs into selected spots here where they set them off.

“Motorists can be directed to drive slowly while in the city because they are asked not to wear helmets. They can wear their helmets when they are out of the city. We need to talk this out with our counterpart law enforcers in the LTO,” Balquin said.

The city’s oldest radio outfit, Catholic station dxMS, has been flooded with complaints by motorists of having been either reprimanded or fined by LTO operatives and local traffic enforcers for not wearing crash helmets in compliance with the “no helmet directive” of the local police and Marines guarding the city’s key entry and exit routes.