San Juan starts clearing streets

MANILA, Philippines — The San Juan City government started clearing streets of parked vehicles as an executive order banning pay parking schemes, issued in compliance with President Duterte’s directive to reclaim public roads from private users, took effect yesterday.

Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman Danilo Lim and San Juan Mayor Francis Zamora led government officials in clearing Annapolis street, one of the major roads where pay parking has been banned.

They put no parking signs along the sidewalks while walking the stretch of Annapolis street yesterday afternoon, one of the mabuhay lanes – routes motorists may take to avoid EDSA – in Metro Manila.

Lim is confident that with the way Zamora is going, he  can beat the 60-day deadline imposed by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) for local chief executives to rid public roads of obstructions.

Also included in Zamora’s executive order are Connecticut, Missouri, Xavier, Grant, Washington, Madison and Pinaglabanan streets, Club Filipino Avenue, Santolan Road and other roads where parking fees are collected by the city government or the barangay.

Zamora vowed to continue with the pay parking ban, which will affect about 300 parking slots, despite losing about P2.5 million in monthly revenues.

“It is for the greater good to permanently remove street parking,” he said in Filipino.

During their clearing operations, Zamora and Lim confronted an owner of a Ford Explorer who was fined P2,150 for illegal parking and disregarding traffic signs.

The motorist, lawyer Jeff de Castro,  had a heated discussion with Zamora and Lim, saying they were not informed about the executive order by the building administrator or Richbelt Terraces, where he works.

“If you could talk to the building owner and administrator as to amending that agreement where we would no longer park here, we would have no problems,” De Castro told the officials.

De Castro argued what they have is an agreement with the building owner where they are required to pay P5,000 a month in parking fees.

“This is not a pay parking facility. I have an office on the ground floor wherein my lease includes one parking slot,” he said.

Lim pointed out to De Castro that his vehicle has already occupied the entire sidewalk.

As it was his first offense, traffic enforcers withdrew the traffic citation ticket on the condition that De Castro move his vehicle so that it would not obstruct the sidewalk.

Zamora has deployed policemen and traffic enforcers in Annapolis and other roads included in the order to ensure that their program is sustained.