When the Transportation tsar formed a road safety task force late last month, he presumably never thought that something appalling and horrible would happen so suddenly.
After all, he had only noble intentions as the Secretary of the Department of Transportation. Naturally, he had to think up initiatives since the Road Safety Month of May was weeks away from national observance.
Secretary Vince Dizon’s task force comprised of the DOTr, its line agencies, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), which were supposed to conduct a sweeping review of road safety policies and assess the driver’s license issuance process.
“We need to ensure that only qualified and responsible drivers are given the privilege to operate vehicles on our roads,” Dizon emphasized during a late-night TV news program.
Failed Initiatives?
You could say he had uncanny foresight in creating the task force. For, who in his right mind would wish someone ill except those with sick “schadenfreud-ing” minds.
Then tragedy struck twice in May, at the onset of Road Safety Month and the UN-declared Global Road Safety Week. These initiatives were supposed to remind everyone—drivers, passengers, and pedestrians—of safe practices on or off the roads. But the unthinkable did happen in a grim twist to his road safety initiatives.
On May 1, a multiple-vehicle collision led to the death of 12 people and severe injuries to 20 others when a Solid North bus crashed into the Tarlac Toll Plaza Exit of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway.
On Sunday, May 3, a vehicle broke through the steel barriers and directly into passengers, killing two (a five-year-old and an adult) while injuring ten other people. at the passengers’ entrance gate of NAIA Terminal I.
In a short three-day span, the regulatory agencies were dealt a double blackeye , exposing what everyone knew all along about the deep-seated corruption at the LTO and LTFRB.
Commuters speak up
While the drivers in the May road crashes were arrested on the scene, the dispensation of justice for the victims was slow.
What followed was an orgy of denunciations from commuter safety advocates and FB-loving “keyboard warriors” who all pointed the finger at the LTO and LTFRB.
In a statement, the Coalition of Filipino Commuters deplored the “lip service” attention given to the victims and the cause of commuters and pedestrians.
The coalition, chaired by Ira Panganiban, blamed transport regulators for their ineptitude and lack of planning, apparently discombobulated by greed and infighting.
“Our regulating agency deserves as much, if not more, blame assigned to it because it allowed these unworthy vehicles and drivers to ply our roads,” Panganiban said.
He added that preventing road crashes through discipline and correct systems is not anti-poor but anti-death, anti-tragedy.
He said that acquiring a license must be a hard-earned process for it to be treasured by every driver, adding that a driver must pass through the veritable eye of the needle to ensure he is roadworthy.
Road crashes are recorded as one of the world’s top killers, next only to cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
Panganiban fumed because the LTO remains embroiled in a “turf war” over who will manage their digital system, and the LTFRB continues to ignore the worn-out and dilapidated buses and jeepneys that ply our roads.
“It is time to level up our system of approving driver’s licenses and awarding vehicle roadworthy certificates,” he said.
Meanwhile, an irate Netizen vented his ire on Facebook, narrating how he paid his way to securing a ten-year valid license. He said he forked out P10,000.00 for the permit, which meant a thousand bucks for every year of driving license to thrill or kill, as exemplified by the double massacre of innocent bystanders.
Like this complainant, other motorists and commuters didn’t buy the idea of “driver error,” given that the errant drivers in these two incidents drove recklessly.
Sobering note
In January 2025, the Highway Patrol Group issued a sobering note: the number of vehicular crashes increased by 27.6 percent, from 24,495 incidents in 2023 to 31,258 incidents in 2024.
Of this number, at least 2,747 people died in road crashes in 2024, 35 percent higher than the 2,030 fatalities in 2023.
More revolting is that reckless driving accounted for 27,248, or 87 percent, of all road accidents nationwide in 2024.
Reckless driving includes improper turning, speeding, drunk driving, overloading, and using mobile phones while driving, according to the HPG.
Panganiban said that by then, the LTO-LTFRB should have heeded the HPG data like a rude awakening, if not a sobering note.
It would seem ironic that this year’s Road Safety Month campaign carries the theme “Drive to Protect: Safe Streets, Safe Children.”
Now, safety advocates are demanding justice for the crash victimes while pressing for a wholesale purge of misfits at the LTO and LTFRB, short of calling for moral reformation at the corruption-laden agencies.
