The Pangasinan Star ONLINE

THE PEN SPEAKS
Danny O. Sagun


DAGUPENOS indeed are not aware that an ordinance was passed last November 14 making motorists pay when they park their vehicles on the city’s main road shoulders.

Some sanggunian secretariat staff, in fact, did not even know of such a measure being passed in that session. And how could beat reporters of newspapers and radio stations, those ubiquitous and nosey fieldmen, have failed to report the same in their public affairs or news programs that afternoon or even the next day? We usually listen to morning newscasts and commentaries but we heard nothing about the passage of that ordinance. Ah, maybe the beat reporters were already tired of the antics and grandstanding of some SP members, not to mention the late start of sessions because the honorables come either too late or not at all, that sometimes they chose not to cover the council sessions anymore?

Our suspicion is that the measure was passed when nobody, including the media, was looking or listening. For if our city legislators really wanted the public to know of their intention, they would have called for public consultations or hearings as they did some two years ago when the city increased its real property taxes. Roland H of DWPR swore in his morning program that no consultation of any kind was held.

We heard last Wednesday morning City Legal Officer Geraldine Baniqued over Super Radyo discussing the possible charging of parking fees along the city’s main thoroughfares and side streets. Yes, she was talking in the future tense. So we sent a text message to anchor Orly N. about the passage of ordinance No. 1853-2005 by the sanggunian last November 14. Dindin said she it was her understanding that the pay parking ordinance was adopted without the required quorum. In short it was null and void.

Null and void? Yes.

And Mayor Benjie Lim, for sure, will not dare affix his signature on a defective ordinance, given the observation of CLO Baniqued. We ourself saw the draft of the ordinance when we visited the sanggunian secretariat last week with Boss Behn for a meeting with the PMS and DILG on the coming December 2 Charter Change consultation of the Consultative Commission members at the Regency Hotel in Calasiao. (Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez is at the helm of the event being a Con-Com member himself representing the vice mayors league.)

While the ordinance was adopted unanimously by the members present, six councilors were absent on that day. Perhaps, that measure would be valid when and if no one questions the quorum. But knowing some intrepid personalities here, we believe that many this early are already raring to question the validity of that ordinance before the courts, especially when or if Mayor BSL signs it notwithstanding.

That ordinance being defective or not, Baniqued though sounded agreeable to the charging of parking fees, citing the legal precedent in Baguio City where the High Court ruled in favor of the city in its own controversial pay parking ordinance.

So, motorists, brace up for the coming days when a parking attendant approaches you as you park your vehicle anywhere in the city proper and issues a ticket based on Ordinance 1853-2005. P20 is charged for the first hour and P5 for every hour afterwards.

We reserve our comment on the need to charge parking fees in the meantime though being a motorist ourself.

We must note here the reaction of Councilor Joey Tamayo via e-mail last Monday. He clarified that he is not the chair of the peace and order committee of the city council as we erroneously reported in this paper last week. Sorry for the slip, we stand corrected. Our only point in the story was Tamayo’s having been bypassed (so we thought, forgetting that he was no longer the committee chair) by his colleagues when they rushed to enact the ordinance without calling for public hearings.

We meant to cast no aspersion or anything by our citing the good councilor’s name, knowing full well that he was the only one during an earlier deliberation in the session who had noted the lopsided sharing arrangement of the parking proceeds – 20 for the city and 80 % for the parking operator – and had boldly queried whether a much fairer 60-40 sharing was possible.

You guessed it, his idea was promptly shot down pronto! How generous of the city to give almost everything to the lucky operators – the plural form here used deliberately.