Anti-smoke belching text drive to be revived

MANILA, Philippines - ABS-CBN Foundation’s Bantay Kalikasan plans to revive the “TXT USOK” text message hotline project to report smoke belching vehicles.

Regina Lopez, managing director of Bantay Kalikasan, said their group stopped operating the text hotline several years ago in disgust over the relief of then Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Undersecretary Arturo Valdez who had aggressively enforced the crackdown against smoke belchers.

The “TXT USOK” program allowed the designation of a text hotline number where motorists, commuters, and pedestrians could report the license plates of smoke-belching vehicles that would immediately be tracked down and apprehended by Bantay Kalikasan and DOTC Action Center personnel, and the concerned private emission testing centers (PETC) probed for giving clearance for the registration of a smoke-belching vehicle.

Lopez said that Valdez’s group had apprehended various smoke-belching public utility buses and shut down several erring PETCs that lobbied for the undersecretary’s removal, which was subsequently granted by then DOTC secretary Leandro Mendoza.

“The reason why it (anti-smoke belching campaign) failed is because of the corruption. It was during the previous administration,” Lopez said in a joint press conference of the Philippine Medical Association and DOTC last week at the launch of a partnership between the PMA and DOTC for a serious multi-agency campaign against smoke belchers by the government supported by the private sector.

Lopez said that with a new leadership at the DOTC led by Secretary Manuel Roxas II, the anti-smoke belching drive could be revived.

“Talks are in the pipeline to restart the program,” Lopez said.

She said Bantay Kalikasan has already started talks with the DOTC and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Environment Management Bureau to plan the revival of the campaign.

“It’s going to work this time ‘cause it’s a new administration,” Lopez said.