ABOUT 15 policemen from Bacolod City Police Office (BCPO) were deputized by Bacolod Traffic Authority Office (BTAO) to arrest erring tricycle and pedicab drivers travelling in national roads in Bacolod City.
Police Lieutenant Colonel Luisito Acebuche, head of BTAO, said Monday, February 24, that in every police station, there will be two policemen deputized to arrest erring tricycle and pedicab drivers travelling in national highways.
This, after Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Eduardo Ano has ordered local chief executives to strictly implement the ban on tricycles, pedicabs, and motorized pedicabs on national highways and to create a tricycle task force that shall draw up a tricycle route plan in their areas.
Acebuche said the 10 police stations were tasked to monitor their areas of jurisdiction to arrest erring drivers.
“The tricycles and pedicabs should use the secondary roads only. They should not travel in national highways, they can cross but they cannot traverse,” he said.
Aside from the police station personnel, he added the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) was also deputized to arrest erring drivers.
Acebuche noted that since last year, hundreds of tricycles and pedicabs were impounded in various areas of Bacolod.
Acebuche said electric bicycles (e-bike) are considered motorized vehicle so they should register it to the Land Transportation Office (LTO).
Violators will be fined P100, their driver’s license will be confiscated and their units will be impounded.
Ano said the local government units must review and modify tricycle routes according to the ban and are encouraged to include in their plans the construction of local roads or overpasses where tricycles can operate.
DILG Memorandum Circular 2020-306, DILG Secretary said that each city and municipality should create a tricycle task force separate from the tricycle regulatory boards to formulate or review its tricycle route plan.
The task force will be composed of the mayor as chairman, the chief of police as vice chairman, the Sanggunian’s committee on transportation or public safety, the president of the Liga ng mga Barangay, the head of the tricycle regulatory board, the head of the Department of Public Order and Safety, the planning and development officer, the head of the traffic management office, and the local government operations officer as members.
Ano said the task force is tasked to meet with stakeholders and rationalize all tricycle routes to enforce the ban, identify national roads within the jurisdiction of the local government unit, and determine the present and proposed routes in view of drafting a tricycle route plan within 30 days from the issuance of the memorandum. (MAP)