CALAMBA CITY, Laguna — The city’s Public Order and Safety Office (POSO) on Friday started implementing the required penalties embodied in “The 2011 Calamba City Traffic Code” in collaboration with the City Treasury Management Office (CTMO).
Jeffrey Rodriguez, officer-in-charge of POSO said in an interview that Patricia Adriano, the city treasurer, on Friday responded to his request to strictly implement the traffic code and the corresponding penalties slapped on violators such as payment of fines.
“We are establishing a system of apprehension and collection of the required penalties. The giving of discounts from the collecting agency (treasury) brought confusion and inaccurate recording,” Rodriguez said.
He said that an agreement was reached with the CTMO, wherein all Traffic Citation Tickets (TCT) and Ordinance Violation Tickets (OVT) issued by the traffic and special operations enforcers will have to pass the POSO first in order to establish the correct amount of penalty in the Order of Payment to be paid to the city treasury department.
“This time, the enforcers will just issue the TCTs and OVTs without any amount and only the (POSO) staff in-charge will determine the amount of penalty in the Order of Payment,” he explained while confirming that “the granting of discounts from the collecting agent at the treasury will now stop.”
According to Rodriguez, violators all the while thought that driving without valid driver’s license would be fined PHP 100 but the traffic code has stipulated a PHP 500 fine for the first offense, PHP750 for the second and PHP 1,000 for the third offenses respectively.
Moreover, Rodriguez said the CTMO will furnish a monthly record of total collection to POSO, of which, 10 percent is claimable as incentive subject to internal rules of disbursement.
“Implementing the traffic code and other ordinances requiring fees as penalties will help improve the income of the city. Likewise, we now have a fund to incentivize our enforcers, especially those who are performing well,” he said.
“People will also learn to observe the traffic code and other obstruction offenses after knowing that penalties are much higher than they have thought of,” he said. (PNA)
