THE idea of adopting the number coding scheme used in Metro Manila to ease traffic condition in Davao City looks simplistic. If that will be pursued by the City Council, I am afraid the effect will only be palliative if not irrational.

It is comforting, however, that Vice Mayor Inday Sara Duterte is more forward-looking. In a TV interview, she politely commented that the traffic problems in the city should require more lasting solutions. I fully agree with her.

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In far, advance metropolis traffic does not come to a gridlock like what Metro Manila has been experiencing for decades. Only when accidents happen that traffic snarls but even then, this is managed efficiently. Not so in Metro Manila. Once you are caught in a gridlock, you are left with no other recourse but to suffer it through for three hours or more.

Presently, Davao City is not yet in dire straight for drastic implementation of another scheme to ease the flow of traffic in Davao City. But something has to be done this early if we have to address the problem of the future.

Let us start with our traffic cops and regulators. This business of fraternizing with erring drivers and operators ought to be stopped. They cannot earn respect this way. In fact, it encourages abuse. Traffic authorities should be consistent with the enforcement of rules and regulations. Traffic enforcers are seriously afflicted with "ningas cogon" virus, you can give them an "A" for that. Cops cannot impose discipline by engaging erring drivers in sweet talk or verbal tussle.

LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) cops issue ticket to an errant driver, never mind if he or she keeps on ranting why she is being cited and while her ticket is being accomplished. Erring driver either pays the fine or face the court to prove he is right and for the cop to prove that he is wrong. Traffic cops must be properly attired and not dressed shabbily to distinguish them from a bum or garbage collectors. Those with porcine figures should be delegated to the office for they have no place in the field which requires agility.

Big time Kotong cops are not difficult to spot. They are the mobile species. They often station themselves in the outskirts of the city. They hide in bushes with their vehicles or motorcycle and pounce on fish cars, delivery trucks and motorcycles to name a few.

If law enforcers are the weakest link in Davao City's traffic problem, the courageous ones are the taxi, jeepney and motorcycle drivers. Leo Magno, the former Land Transportation Office Chief in Region 11 (Southern Mindanao), once told me that 90 percent of traffic incidents in Davao City involve taxis. This is followed by motorcycles. With their recklessness, I'd venture to say that 90 percent of taxi drivers do not know traffic rules and regulations. If you have not noticed it yet, 90 percent of the taxis plying in the city have dints and scratches. This same number of taxi units operating in Davao is so dilapidated they should be consigned to the junkyard. What is disturbing here is that over 10 percent of the taxis are colorum.

One wonders why these flagrant iniquitous iniquities are tolerated. If the LTFRB (Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board), LTO and our fraternizing traffic cops just do their job, 90 percent of the traffic mesh and mess in the city will be solved.

But that is not the last of our problems. If public utility drivers are courageous and reckless, private vehicle drivers, and that includes me, are the most abusive. If you deduce that parents of Ateneo de Davao University students know basic courtesy, you are dead wrong. Not a few understands why in a civilized society one has to queue. Pero mayroon diyan na nakalinya na ang mga sasakyan, sisingit pa ang nguso ng kanila. What aggravates this all is that traffic cops just helplessly and hopelessly watch and sometimes even salute the driver. The Acacia drive is so narrow with "No Parking" signs planted all over like chevrons mushrooming all over the places, but just the same parking is tolerated as though we, Ateneo parents, have franchises to occupy the road. Despite this patent abuse, the cops are so pliant.

Finally, the City Council should exercise political will. Whoever proposed that we implement the coding system must address traffic problems which, by the virtue of his or her position, can pass measures that can alleviate the traffic mess. Pass an ordinance that would ban motorcycle with side cars in national highways. Ban pedicabs in the city’s urban secondary roads. Designate all undeveloped vacant lands within the city poblacion, both private and government owned, as public parking lots. Do not allow vendors to occupy roads like those around city hall and the legislative building, public plaza and pedestrian lanes.

These belong to the public and should not be misappropriated for any reason. Not when the vendors do not even have the sense of orderliness and cleanliness which they, at the very least, requite the city leadership for tolerating their presence there.

These are just a few doable things this corner can think of to ease the present traffic congestion. For the long term, consider public metro-rail system, double-deck or two-coach buses and phase out the jeepneys, motorcycle cabs and pedicabs, otherwise they may operate outside of the urban center. But then you might lose votes.