Full-face helmet ban mulled in Bohol

TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines - — Noting that requiring the use of protective helmet failed in its purpose, city legislators pushed for a measure that minimizes its contributing factor to the series of shooting incidents involving perpetrators concealing their identities under full-face helmets.

Sangguniang Panlungsod now studies the option to draft an ordinance prohibiting any material that conceals a person's identity, including full-face helmets, in public places in the light of shooting incidents involving perpetrators riding in tandem who were wearing helmet.

The SP Committee on protective services is set to hold a committee hearing anytime this week to discuss the possibility of coming up with an ordinance that prohibits any material that conceals a person's identity in public places such as full-face helmets, bonnets, shirt or any cloth wrapped around the head.

Vice Mayor Jose Antonio Veloso, the presiding officer of the SP, assigned Majority Floor leader-Councilor Adam Relson Jala-who is also the chairman of the committee on protective services to undertake necessary actions.

The move stemmed from the privilege speech delivered by Councilor Jerry Pabe during an earlier regular session.

As chair of the Committee on Public Utilities, Pabe said he was alarmed by the series of killings involving helmet-wearing perpetrators riding in tandem.

The turn of events prompted Pabe to find measures to ensure that the city streets and through the rough roads in the city's outskirts are avenues of a fine travel and a journey to enjoy without fear and trauma.

The strategy of criminals wearing full-face helmets or at least a cloth around their faces boiled down to the purpose of concealing the criminal's identity to evade arrest and send the investigators to the blank wall.

"As the events proved the Helmet Law to be counter-productive, it would never be a shame to circumvent such law that allows criminals to prey on those who are protected by democracy that supposedly upholds Life and all that breathe with it such as the freedom to travel SAFELY and the freedom to proceed with LIFE without undue interruption even by those who are not happy with the existence of those who have the right to exist," according to Pabe.

With these insights, Pabe called on the legal luminaries of Bohol, the three congressmen of Bohol, and their counterparts in the Senate to explore some basis to support a possible legislation on protecting Life by prohibiting any material that conceals identity of a person or those that distract the process of identification in public places.  (FREEMAN)