Gordon: ‘Doble plaka’ law seeks to limit ‘riding-in-tandem’ killers

The newly signed law that requires bigger license plates on motorcycles aims to cut down on or prevent killings carried out by gunmen on the two-wheeled vehicles,  Senator Richard Gordon said on Sunday.

"Ipinagtatanggol ko lang ang mga taong pinapatay ng mga riding-in-tandem assassins. They can no longer seek justice for themselves. How do we do justice to these people? You limit the way people can get away with riding without motor plates and riding with stolen motorcycles," Gordon said in a statement issued a day after President Rodrigo Duterte said he would suspend the implementation of the Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act, which he had signed into law last month.

"I will try to convince the LTO [Land Transportation Office] to maybe to hang on, i-suspend ko lang muna. Kasi it is not good, it is dangerous to place another gadget, lalo na, may kanto [plate number]," Duterte said on Saturday at the national convention of the National Federation of the Motorcycle Clubs of the Philippines (NFMCP) in Iloilo City.

Gordon, the principal author and sponsor of the law, underscored that the killings perpetrated by gunmen on motorcycles has "plagued" the country for the past 15 years and can be considered "one of the biggest contributors to extrajudicial killings."

He cited data from the Philippine National Police which shows that there were 28,409 motorcycle-riding crimes reported from 2010 to 2017—46 percent of which were shooting incidents.

Gordon said that he will explain this to the President, who has already expressed intent to meet with him regarding the plan of suspending the implementation of the law.

The Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act was signed into law by Duterte on March 8, 2019. — Dona Magsino/BM, GMA News