LOW TURNOVER OF TRAFFIC FINESNaga City. The Traffic Violations Bureau (TVB) of the Naga City government is engaged more in filing criminal charges against erring drivers of this city than charging them fines.
This was revealed by J. Antonio Amparado, Sangguniang Panlunsod secretary member of the TVB. "Administrative fines are no longer contributing much to the city’s thrust in tax collections," he said.
He added, that payment for administrative fines has become inversely proportional to the number of criminal cases filed before the City’s Prosecutors Office against erring drivers caught by traffic enforcers.
The TVB has an average of 35 criminal cases against drivers caught by the policemen and other deputized agents of the TVB. The monthly average is 300, according to Amparado.
On the other hand, administrative fines form drivers have only a 3,000 Philippine pesos monthly average. This is only 10% of the figure the city had a few months ago. The average monthly fines then reached 35,000 pesos.
Amparado explained that the dip in fines came after the Supreme Court ruled that law enforcers especially traffic policemen and other deputies of the Philippine National Police and the Land Transportation Office could not confiscate the driver’s license and other related documents of drivers caught violating traffic rules as this would mean "thievery". Drivers license and other pertinent documents are deemed to be personal properties of the driver.
Prior to the court’s ruling, law enforcement officer were able to confiscate drivers licenses of the drivers cited for any traffic violation which are redeemable within 72 hours after paying administrative fines in favor of the city government of Naga. Bikol Daily
