The country experienced a staggering 31,000 road accidents in 2024, half of them involving motorcycles. That’s an average of 85 accidents per day, 35 percent higher than the figures in 2023.
Those are not estimates. The numbers come from the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) of the Philippine National Police.
The HPG also reported that 87.17 percent of the accidents were due to reckless driving, including speeding, bad overtaking, and drunk driving. The Philippine General Hospital said 88 percent of the victims of motorcycle accidents that they handled were under the influence of liquor.
I do not have the numbers for Cebu but last year, an orthopedic surgeon at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center told us during a Walk and Talk breakfast at Parklane Hotel that 80 percent of the trauma cases that they handled were related to motorcycles.
We have been complaining about the traffic for as long as I can remember and almost always blame it on the negligence and the wanton lack of discipline among the drivers. While the accusation is directed against all drivers in general, the most frequently mentioned are the motorcycle riders.
Could it be because the authorities are coddling them or are at least giving them unfair advantage?
Not too long ago, I wrote about the case of a chief operating officer (COO) of a shipping company whose car was hit by a speeding motorcycle as she was crossing the street from Mandani. The accident must have been captured on closed-circuit television (CCTV) and if the police had only taken the time to view it, they would have found that she was not at fault.
The Mandaue police apparently did not do that and instead insisted that it was the fault of the car driver because the other vehicle was a motorcycle. Worse, they threatened to detain her unless she and the other driver could come up with a settlement.
I spoke to the traffic investigator by phone (I was in Boljoon then) and asked him why the threat to detain her (in the middle of the night, at that) and he replied that he was acting according to their standard operating procedure especially since the motorcycle driver was seriously injured.
How seriously? Did you see his injury? Are you professionally competent to classify an injury? That is what the law says, he replied simply. As it turned out, the “victim” suffered only an injured toe. Fortunately for the shipping executive, a more influential friend called the police and persuaded them to release her.
It’s not only happening in Mandaue. In Cebu City, another friend was driving his car when a motorcycle appeared out of nowhere, hit another vehicle and careened towards my friend’s car. Everything is on CCTV but my friend is now being charged in court with reckless imprudence.
Only in the Philippines.