At least 114 people are now deputized by the Land Transportation Office to enforce traffic laws in Negros Oriental, following a one-day seminar-orientation and refresher course spearheaded by the Land Transportation Office-Regional Office 7 based in Cebu City.
The participants include previously LTO-deputized individuals whose deputation order had expired last December and new applicants who were recommended respectively by their organization or local government chief executives, said Janine Lawas, chief of the LTO District Office in Bais City, negros Oriental.
About 90 of the participants come from the Philippine National Police, who sent new applicants as many of those previously deputized have either been transferred to assignments outside of Negros Oriental or for other reasons could no longer perform as an LTO-deputized agent.
Other deputized agents include LTO-Bais personnel headed by Janine Lawas, traffic management personnel from the cities of Canlaon, Bais and Tanjay, employees of the Department of Public Works and Highways deployed at the weigh bridge in Bais, and members of the Department of Transportation and Communications-Tracer group in Tanjay.
Macario Getaruelas, OIC of the Operations Division of LTO-7, led the regional LTO team during the one-day orientation.
Ronald Lim, of the LTO-7 operations division, was the chief resource speaker and imparted to the participants the procedures, role and functions of deputized agents, as well as giving lectures on the helmet law and certain new laws, to include that which requires drivers of public utility vehicles, jeepneys and shuttle buses to adhere to a new color-coded uniform scheme, said Lawas.
The deputized LTO-agents are assured to receive their deputation orders from the LTO regional office at the soonest possible time so they can start enforcing traffic laws in the province, she added.