INTRODUCTION

In partial fulfillment of the course Citizenship and Governance, our group had come up with one idea to practice our power as concerned citizens. Given the numerous social and bureaucratic alarming matters such as; the heavy flow of traffic, poor drainage system, insufficient healthcare services, and a lot more, the most substantial problem that interests us greatly to move is the threats that challenges public road security and safety. As students of De La Salle University-Manila, we thought on exerting a worthy effort to power in our voice, and so we’ll gather the public’s consent through petition for law reform, then spread the advocacy through social media, until it reaches the authority.

OBJECTIVE

The team has constructed a petition paper that would plea people to participate on the advocacy through signing up. Our Advocacy on law reform regarding the dysfunction and technical deficiencies of street and traffic lights is very relevant and timely since concerns on this weren’t given enough action to be resolved based upon the researches we made. Our rationale is mainly to protest to the government to reform laws with stricter execution of policies for the security of pedestrians and all road users. This one would be an enactment of the bottom-up reform scheme, meaning, the problem is highly desired by the public to be addressed and acted upon by the authority. Other than that, the petitioned students from DLSU would be supplemented information regarding the process of fulfilling our advocacy, they would be updated on the existing laws about street safety, threats of an unsafe urban environment, street-smart ideas and a lot more that would be significant for them as daily road users.

AIMS

The team will ask for the improvements on:

1) Duties of Local Government Units (LGUs) and The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in implementation for new projects. There are various and essential projects that the government or departments proposed for our country to step forward. For example, the projects are: MMDA-Bloomberg Project: “Enforcement of the 100% Smoke Free Environment Policy in Metropolitan Manila”, Development Planning: The MRT 7 Extension Project, Recognition of Outstanding Traffic Enforcers or Joint Administrative Order NO. 2014-01 enforced by Land Transportation Office (LTO) and the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) under EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 292. However, the weak system on the implementation seems to be blamed for staying back. Therefore, the team will request for the LGUs and DPWH’s duty on regulating those revised laws or projects specified by law.

2) New project on operating streetlights and stoplights in Metro Manila. It is easily observed that the traffic lights or stop lights do not work after typhoon even though those are necessary in Metro Manila where the undisciplined drivers always make pedestrians in danger. Those facilities should be fixed immediately but, instead, traffic enforcers take the place in the middle of intersections, making the drivers even more confused sometimes.

• The street lights in Metro Manila must also be fixed because thieves are quite common, and one of the reasons why thieves easily commit this crime is because some streets are dark.
• The places where stronger supervisions are needed:

1. Along the Taft Avenue
2. Along Makati(Osmena Hi-Way)

The team expects to have the following changes by this project:1) To leave a mark on the government regarding issues in public safety, specifically road safety 2) to have revised and new laws by the end of the next presidential term and 3) to increase public awareness regarding the laws in the streets.