OpinionsThe Way It IsR.A. No. 11235, Motorcycle Crime-Prevention Act

R.A. No. 11235, Motorcycle Crime-Prevention Act

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A motorbiker’s point of view

No law is more stupid than this one. This is the pinnacle of kagaguhan among our lawmakers.

I would venture to say that this law was probably enacted out of frustration at the inability of the Philippine National Police to solve tandem-rider murders in the country. It seems they’ve done everything to try to make law enforcement effective at this, but to no avail. Therefore, this law, like a disliked bitter pill, is rammed down people’s throats.

I am a motorcyclist, and I will say that on my motorcycle at least, there is no place infront of it for a license plate of any size. I did have another big bike before that had room for a license plate on the front but that was the way it was designed.

Even then, had I been required to place one on it, it would have meant a fabrication of a special bracket – an unnecessary expense – not to mention that it could possibly have affected its performance. There’s just too much going on in the front of a motorcycle (front wheel rebound, headlights, marker lights, cooling ducts, and even sensors that control some functions) that adding something not designed to be there might interfere with safe handling, which could cause riders to lose control, resulting in serious injuries or death.

Sen. Richard Gordon neglected to undertake a thorough research on the inherent dangers associated with the kind of modifications that his law would require riders to make to their motorcycles. He is only aware that around the country, tandem riders commit most of the hit-and-run murders, and that all the PNP has is an accumulation of unsolved murders.

Do you think it ever crossed his mind that the PNP is not competent enough to conduct a thorough and exhaustive investigation of crimes until they are solved? Did he also consider that killers, most certainly, would not have license plates on motorcycles that really belonged to them?

Even if there were 10 plates on a motorcycle or none, there are no police officers on the road to spot that anyway, except at checkpoints.

They can’t even see that kids are rampantly driving motorcycles in the cities and towns!

So are they going to have checkpoints everyday in all strategic areas of the City just to have a concentration of police officers at certain spots?

And then there are the exorbitant fines that could open a new and very lucrative avenue for corruption.

I saw the Senator in an interview on YouTube, and he somehow sounded like he has realized the dumb thing he had done, but no matter, it is now law. All they’re waiting for are the Implementing Rules and Regulations that, hopefully, would be a little less stupid than the law itself.

What if they made a law that would require a police chief to be fired after the third unsolved murder under his watch? Or you could make that the fifth unsolved murder, to give the person a chance. How would that be?

Cruel as it may sound, this is probably what is needed if we are to make effective police officers out of them yet.

I don’t know the statistics in all the towns and cities around the country, but I will tell you that I’ve been told of one where every single murder that’s ever been committed has remained unsolved to this very day. The only murderers they’ve convicted and jailed were those who willingly surrendered.

That’s not satisfactory performance, regardless of what excuses they give. Not one solved murder. Holy cow!

Because of that, motorbikers like me bear the brunt of the government’s stupid response to the problem. Not fair at all.

This is a simple motorbiker’s point of view but I assure you, no amount of legal jargon would make a stupid law seem clever or sensible.

_______________________________

Dumagueteño Josemari Umbac joins the MetroPost as columnist, having returned to Dumaguete after living in the US for more than three decades. He is a published author on Amazon.com. He writes about life in this beloved City the way it is.

Author’s email: [email protected]

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