BARMM organizes deputized traffic enforcement teams

COTABATO CITY — The Bangsamoro government and the police have started organizing fully deputized traffic law-enforcement teams as part of an effort to clear the highways in the autonomous region of groups posing as such.

Bangsamoro Transportation and Communications Minister Paisalin Pangandaman Tago told reporters on Sunday that personnel of the Bangsamoro Land Transportation Office and the police's Regional Highway Patrol Group last week trained the traffic management employees of the Cotabato City government as law-enforcement deputies of the regional government.

Tago said their efforts to organize deputized traffic and vehicle regulations enforcement teams to operate in the six provinces and three cities in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are supported by the Bangsamoro Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

Tago said the Ministry of Transportation and Communications-BARMM will enlist the help of municipal and provincial governments in the autonomous region in its planned expansion of the program soon.

Tago, an accountant-lawyer, said they will prosecute in court any unauthorized individual caught pretending as deputized law enforcement agent of any MoTC-BARMM agency as a scheme for extorting money from drivers of private and passenger vehicles.

“It seems we don’t have them around anymore. Still, we are not taking chances. We shall institutionalize a very functional law-enforcement system in our highways through deputized, well- trained deputized law-enforcement teams,” Tago said.