Supreme Court urged to stop provincial bus ban on EDSA

The AKO Bicol Party-list on Monday asked the Supreme Court to stop the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) from enforcing a regulation banning provincial buses and terminals on EDSA.

In a petition for certiorari and prohibition, the party-list urged the justices to issue a temporary restraining order against MMDA Regulation No. 19-002, Series of 2019, a measure they alleged was approved with grave abuse of discretion.

The regulation prohibits or revokes the issuance of business permits to public utility bus terminals and operators and other public utility vehicle terminals and operators along EDSA.

Under the measure, set to be fully implemented in June, provincial buses coming from the south are expected to end their trips at a terminal in Sta. Rosa, Laguna and one in Parañaque, and those coming from north at a Valenzuela terminal, the petition stated.

But AKO Bicol argued the regulation was hastily approved without public consultation and hearing and "without any legal and scientific bases for its implementation."

"It was issued without any showing or concrete finding that the traffic congestion along EDSA is directly correlated to the existence of provincial buses," the petition said.

It added that the regulation would merely relocate traffic and burden local governments at the outskirts of Manila and the commuting public traveling to and from the provinces, including thousands of the party-list's Bicolano constituents.

Citing 2017 figures, the party-list said that only 3,300 of the more than 367,000 vehicles that ply EDSA daily are provincial buses, a smaller number than 12,000 city buses and more than 247,000 private motor vehicles.

It also said the regulation was void from the start for having been an exercise of police power that the MMDA and the Metro Manila Council (MMC) supposedly do not possess.

With police power being a legislative act, the provincial bus ban and terminal closure require the enactment of ordinances by individual local government units, the party-list told the High Court through their lawyers.

However, even assuming for the sake of argument that MMDA and MMC have police power, the assailed regulation "could not pass the test of validity," they said.

"...The present case involves an issuance which was arbitrarily, whimsically and capriciously issued on the basis of a mere verbal directive of President Rodrigo Duterte during the 30th Cabinet Meeting held in Malacañang," the petition added.

The party-list further argued that the regulation should eventually be declared null and void from the beginning for being contrary to existing jurisprudence, laws, and the 1987 Constitution. — BM, GMA News