Wednesday, January 14, 2009 Limlingan: Justifying the means By DP Limlingan The Advocate
THE continuing saga of the Balas Boys and, this time, some knights from the kingdom of trucks seems to be endless at the battleground of the Arnedo Park. We have known the Balas Boys cause; in fact, they were made famous for their daring bravado of protests against the king and his administrator up there.
Just what are the truckers seem to be mad about? Provincial Ordinance No. 261 came in effect last week. It is the provincial government's action against overloaded trucks plying our roads, the same trucks that hauled a million bucks of income for Pampanga.
Commercial quarrying is at a low right now, if not at a complete halt, so is the collection of revenues that made the Governor proud of his administration. Sad to note, the public coffers of Pampanga is suffering from low amount of fees collected from the used to be king of the roads of the province. I have asked before in this column, "why kill the goose that lays golden eggs?" Why do we have to give income generators the hard time in their trade despite the millions of pesos they contribute to Pampanga?
The most salient aim of ordinance is to curb overloading. While the said law was undergoing legislative process last year, it earned praises, as this will ultimately save our roads from wanton destruction. One of the ardent supporters for its enactment then is the Advocacy for the Development of Central Luzon, better known as the ADCL. As always, this NGO is always on the side of goodness.
Speaking of roads, they breathed a sigh of relief when they are now spared from the pounding of tire trucks and trucks' weight being pulled by gravity. Overloaded trucks means more weight for less tires, equals more weight per square inch of road. This leads to the pulverization of roads, be they concrete or asphalt. The destruction of our roads eventually leads to the discouragement of investments. Poor roads likewise court danger as motorists often meet vehicular accidents for such reasons.
The issue now is whether we sacrifice the income from commercial quarrying specifically from the revenues collected from quarry trucks or our roads which as a result of the overloading, they are ravaged.
First we determine the problem. Then we find solutions. The problem per se is overloading. The implementing rules and regulations of the ordinance as formulated by the technical working group, requires the cutting or the downsizing of the dump boxes of trucks in order to lessen their weight. Seems logical. It must be noted that we should focus on the weight and not in the size of the load. We should focus as to how heavy a truck is and not how big the load it carries.
When I was a child, I am often asked by my older friends a tricky question that inquires as to which is heavier between a needle and a boat. When answered the boat is heavier, they ask me as to why does it float in the water and why a needle when thrown in the water, sinks. When answered the needle is heavier than the boat, of course, no one would believe.
Truckers should not be forced nor "coerced" to downsize their dumpboxes and instead, be told to lessen their load capacity. As a matter of policing anyone who would violate, why not just install a weighing scale so as to deter those who would resort to overloading.
Again, the point of the matter is the weight and not the size of the trucks' dumpboxes.
The Technical Working Group who devised the IRR of the ordinance perhaps tried to justify the means by making truckers comply with the cutting half of their dump boxes. They should have considered other means on how to help truckers and not beat them up with onerous impositions and other burdens among which is their accreditation. The TWG should put into consideration that these are income generators just like other investors who add up to the government's coffers by way of taxes.
