Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Helmet Ord was Indeed Stupid, I told you then


By Mortz C. Ortigoza          
                         
Columnists and radio commentators should not only have flair of writing and gift of gab, they should be perceptive where what they passionately write and bombard in the airwaves are buttressed by past knowledge and research.
Otherwise, they would be just like many of these present practitioners who pollute the media with their, my golly, all form but lack the freakin’ substance’s journalistic somersault. 
  
Here was a column and blog, full of common sense, I wrote in July 28, 2014:

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“The Dagupan City Council led by its proponent Councilor Netu Tamayo, a lawyer, had passed an ordinance revising the helmet law by imposing a fine for motorist who drive motorcycle above 15 kilometers per hour (KPH) and/or wearing his helmet inside the central business district as a way to deter criminals riding in tandem in perpetuating their dastardly acts.
The intention of the dads versus the criminals was laudable but the passing of the no-helmet law is idiotic.
Lawyer Jojo Guadiz, the regional director of the Land Transportation Office based in San Fernando City even warned the councilors that in case he and his men see motorcycle riders driving without a helmet they would flag and fine them.
Republic Act No. 10054 mandates all motorcycle riders to wear standard protective helmets while driving. It imposes fines for violators at P1, 500 for the first offense; P3, 000 for the second offense, P5, 000 for the thirds offense and P10, 000 plus confiscation of driver’s license for the fourth and succeeding offenses.
What would Netu and his colleagues do in case a motorist is fined by an LTO enforcer because he violated a national law like RA No. 10054?
Would Netu and the councilors chip-in to pay the fine in behalf of the flagged motorist?
Let us remember an ordinance can not supersede (to motorcycle riders who read my article it means “replace”, stupid!) a national law.
If the dads were against the national law they should lobby at congress to pass the statute they want and not act among themselves to make their own law. 


Son of a gun, they are not congress, they are only a city council”.

*** 


Recently, Regional Trial Court Judge Junius F. Dalaten rejected that Section 4 of Ordinance No. 2013-2014 (Instituting Certain Measures for the Protection of the Lives and Property of Dagupenos and Providing Penalties Thereto for Non Observance) runs counter to a law particularly Republic Act  No. 10054 (Helmet Law) where motorists are required to wear helmet.

“Clearly, their (respondents) interpretation to the ordinance lead them to arrive to their conclusion that they are not violating the Helmet Law resorted to the game of semantics,” Judge Dalaten wrote.
Petitioner and Lawyer Llamas, a motorbike enthusiast, petitioned the court in 2014 that the councilors passed the assailed ordinance to vent their ire on all innocent motorcycle riders after Councilor Tamayo’s wife was mugged by motorcycle riders after she withdrew money from an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) in a bank in the city.
The RTC admonished the local lawmakers: “Let everyone be informed that enactment of local ordinances cannot rest solely on the whims and caprices of the local legislative assembly sitting in its August chamber, not to vent an ire or to give way to an unbridled anger but it must conform to the test of consistency with existing laws”.

In case the respondents appeal the decision of the RTC to the higher court, I am sure the latter will uphold the “common sense” decision of Dalaten.
To those who still advocate on this beleaguered ordinance, even political science students will rebutt you in this boondoggle and waste of saliva at the expense of the taxpayers’ monies with that legal maxim “a local law cannot supersede a national law”.


(You can read my selected columns at mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)

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