Pay parking won't rock
Posted on July 11, 2006 - Filed Under General |
DAGUPAN City officials pushing for that shelved-revived-then shelved again pay parking measure had better take their cue from the latest development on a similar issue in Baguio City involving the feisty Mayor Braulio Yaranon and the Jadewell Parking Systems Corp., private operator of the controversial pay parking project.
That the Baguio case now involves Malacanang thru Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita who has ordered the suspension of Yaranon for at least a year in connection with a complaint filed by Jadewell on the matter, sends a veiled message that some pay parking proponents today possess real or imagined clout, one that could be hazardous to a local official’s health if and when he ever crosses them or, on pure innocence — or ignorance –proceeds to take up the cudgels for a group, in this case, the motorists affected by the pay parking ordinance.
Malacanang, speaking thru Ermita, said Yaranon’s order to the city police to stop Jadewell employees from pursuing their operations “violated certain basic contractual and vested rights of Jadewell.” The mayor, on the other hand, said he will fight the order in the name of motorists whose rights to due process, he said, were violated in the company’s collection of fines and penalties and the confiscation of vehicles. In any case, some landmark jurisprudence looms on the horizon over privatized pay parking.
The Dagupan pay parking proposal, in comparison, is, right now, looking every inch like it would be stillborn. While many in the city’s legislative body seem inclined, even enthusiastic, to support it, the lopsided sharing of the proceeds from the pay parking to be implemented by a contractor as presented by City Councilor Chito Samson, appears to be the major stumbling block to a full endorsement. At least, a good majority of the honorables in that chamber appear to still have their wits and sense of decency with them as to distance themselves from an action that is apparently, patently and grossly favorable to the contractor but not to the city.
All for the better, we dare say. For, if the measure were to be railroaded now absent a thorough public consultation, and even if Mayor Benjamin S. Lim himself were to favor it, there is no guarantee that the implementation will proceed smoothly as the Baguio experience starkly shows. Somehow a badly cooked meal will smell.
Only a very thin line always separates public welfare from patent graft, that’s as blunt as we can diplomatically manage to say it. And people will see things for what they are
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