Editorial: Awareness on local laws

DURING a research forum on the Rainwater Harvesting Systems at the Ateneo de Davao University Friday, the university's social research training and development office (SRTDO) presented to the participants the compliance of Dabawenyos on the city's Rainwater Harvesting Ordinance.

Their city-wide social survey series 9 (CWSS 9) showed that the Rainwater Harvesting Ordinance has the lowest compliance among the city's notable laws at only 33.5 percent saying they have complied with the law.

Included in their presentation is how the Rainwater Harvesting Ordinance is being complied by Dabawenyos as compared to other ordinances. When they showed the comparison slides from CWSS 3 to 9, it is not only this nine-year-old ordinance that scored pretty low in terms of compliance or awareness.

In CWSS 9, also part of the bottom three in terms of compliance are ordinances on the speed limit and anti-distracting driving with 50.5 percent and 57 percent, respectively, of Dabawenyos saying that they are complying with the laws.

Then in CWSS 8, the three lowest complied ordinances are the Speed Limit Ordinance (29 percent), Rainwater Harvesting Ordinance (17.9 percent), and the Halal Food Certification Ordinance (14.9 percent). The three are also at the bottom in CWSS 7.

This got us asking as to why some ordinances have a very high compliance rate while others have low ratings?

One of the reasons for this might be the Dabawenyos' awareness on some of the local laws. Ask yourselves, if we had not written about this how many of you know about the Rainwater Harvesting Ordinance or Halal Food Certification Ordinance?

We are not saying that the local government unit (LGU) is not doing its job well as some ordinances have pretty high compliance rates like the Anti-Jaywalking Ordinance or the Garbage Segregation and Waste Disposal.

Maybe it is time for the LGU to refresh Dabawenyos or raise their awareness on some of the city's ordinances that they might have forgotten about. Whether it is through social media or traditional media, Dabawenyos might appreciate a reminder or two on some key ordinances.

Who knows, someone might be violating a local law but have no idea about simply because they do not know about it.

However, Dabawenyos should also be faithful to the laws the city's legislative branch enacts like properly following the Speed Limit Ordinace or Anti-Smoking Ordinance. Some would still break these laws and even threaten enforcers who apprehend them.

While the local government unit and concerned agencies should strengthen its implementation and monitoring on local laws, those living in Davao City should also strictly follow these ordinances whether someone is looking or not.