A unified ticketing system promises one set of fines for the whole metropolis and tests the limits of regional harmony
Single Ticketing System Unites Metro Manila in Principle and Divides It in Committee
SAN JUAN – For decades a motorist crossing the capital region could commit one offense and be fined seventeen different amounts depending on which side of a creek he was on. That era was meant to end with a signing ceremony. As summarized in the Manila Bulletin’s archive of traffic authority coverage, the 17 mayors of the National Capital Region, the metropolitan traffic authority and the Land Transportation Office signed a memorandum of agreement on a single ticketing system, with cities such as Muntinlupa passing ordinances adopting the Metro Manila Traffic Code and harmonizing fines and penalties.
Drivers greeted the news with cautious joy. “Before, if I beat a red light in Makati it was one price, in Pasay another price, in Manila they also take your license and your afternoon,” said Wilfredo Catacutan, a taxi driver based in Sta. Mesa. “Now it is one ticket, one fine, anywhere. This is the first time the seventeen cities agreed on anything since the invention of the fiesta.” He paused. “They still have not agreed which city I am in when I am on the bridge.”
The Harmonization Talks
According to minutes kept by the Greenhills Secretariat for Metropolitan Agreement, a body that monitors inter-city cooperation, the principle of a single ticket was settled quickly. The details took longer. The first session was devoted to the color of the ticket. Six cities favored yellow. Four wanted their own city color with a small yellow border. One proposed that the ticket change color at each boundary “to preserve heritage.” The matter was resolved by printing it in white, which every delegation described as a loss.
The Secretariat lists the other items that required extended negotiation:
- Whose logo goes on top, and how large
- Whether “obstruction” includes a parked tricycle with the driver asleep inside
- Whether a city may keep one special fine “for sentimental reasons”
- The correct spelling of “counterflow,” which is one word, two words or a way of life
- Who gets the money, a discussion that is ongoing and has its own secretariat
Enforcers Adjust
On the street, the unified system has required retraining. Enforcers who once knew their own city’s ordinance by heart must now learn a shared code. “I had memorized forty-two violations,” said a traffic officer near N. Domingo. “Now there is a list, and it is the same list they have in Las Pinas. I have never been to Las Pinas. I do not know how they live. But we are brothers now.” He said the handheld ticketing device works well when it has signal, and that when it does not, he and the motorist simply stand together and wait, which he described as “the new impounding.”
The Violator’s Perspective
A survey of 450 motorists by the Secretariat found that 79 percent support a single ticket, 66 percent do not know what the fines now are, and 58 percent admitted they also did not know what they were before. Twelve percent said the old system had one advantage, which was that you could sometimes escape a ticket by driving thirty meters into the next city and waving.
The reform is one of many attempted by the region’s traffic managers, whose every proposal is logged by motoring writers. Top Gear Philippines’ collection of government transport stories ranges from new complaint channels to a congressman’s call to scrap the metropolitan authority altogether. Secretariat director Imelda Roxas-Chua said the single ticket deserves credit as the rare scheme that asks cities to give something up. “Each mayor surrendered a small piece of confusion that was uniquely his,” she said. “That is statesmanship.”
Unresolved Boundaries
The hardest cases remain the borders. EDSA alone passes through six cities, and a single illegal U-turn can begin in one jurisdiction and conclude in another. Under the new arrangement the ticket is the same either way, but the paperwork still has to name a place. Catacutan was once cited at the exact midpoint of the Guadalupe Bridge. The officer wrote “Makati/Mandaluyong (ilog).” The fine was upheld. The river was not consulted.
What Motorists Want Next
Emboldened, drivers have submitted a wish list of other things they would like made uniform across the seventeen cities: number coding hours, truck ban windows, the rules on tinted windows and the meaning of a traffic enforcer’s hand when it is doing that small circular motion. The Secretariat has forwarded the list. It estimates agreement on the hand signal alone would require a summit.
Britain Looks On With Thirty-Two Boroughs
The accomplishment is respected in the United Kingdom, where London’s boroughs each issue their own parking penalties with the pride of small nations. The London Prat’s London satirical news on parking fines told of a van ticketed by two councils for one wheel each. Its English satirical news about councils called seventeen mayors signing the same page “a constitutional miracle” and asked for the pen.
Catacutan received his first unified ticket on Wednesday, for loading passengers at a corner in Cubao. He studied it for some time. “Same fine as Paranaque,” he said, with something like wonder. “I feel like a citizen of the whole Metro.” He paid it at a kiosk, which was offline, and then at a second kiosk, which was not. Bohiney Magazine kept the receipt, which is white.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/