Grace Poe: Time to grant Duterte emergency powers to solve traffic

Senate committee on public service chair Sen. Grace Poe said it is high time to grant emergency powers to President Rodrigo Duterte to address the country’s perennial traffic problems but cautioned against abusing these powers.

In her opening statement during the hearing of her committee on Wednesday, Poe said the traffic woes that commuters and motorists experience daily are becoming unbearable.

“Extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions….We must be open to innovative solutions and be ready to think outside the box,” Poe said.

She said these innovative solutions included emergency powers to be granted to the President.

Duterte had earlier asked Congress to give his office emergency powers for at least two years to address the country’s traffic problems.

Poe, however, noted that the emergency powers to be granted to Duterte will be “clear, specific, and time-bound.”

“Though we are open to innovation we must also be responsible with our actions. Giving the president emergency powers necessarily raises concerns about concentration of powers to one person as these could easily be abused,” Poe said.

“We don’t need statistics to prove how traffic has gone from bad to worse in Mega Manila and other parts of the country. Cars move at glacial phase,” Poe said.

“People, including children, now wake up before dawn to catch an MRT train that can still accommodate passengers only to realize that the time to queue for a ticket is now longer than the train ride itself,” Poe added.

Defined, quantifiable objectives

Poe said before granting the emergency powers to the President, the Senate must require the the executive department to provide a list of well-defined and quantifiable objectives.

“We must be clear on what emergency powers will be used for, it is important to use to define and quantify the objectives of the bills…give us the bill of particulars, the specific results,” Poe said.

Poe also said the contracts and transactions that the executive department will be entering into to address the traffic situation must be transparent and open to scrutiny.

“First it must be FOI (Freedom of Information)- compliant, it is non-negotiable,” Poe said.

She also said the powers must be also “fiscally responsible” and must never put the government in a disadvantageous fiscal condition.

“There must be no hidden costs or undeclared conditional debts that must be passed on to several generations…The power to expedite project should not be expensive one. We will allow you to have shortcuts but the public should not be shortchanged,” Poe said.

Lastly, Poe said the powers must be time-bound.

“It must have details and deadlines. Hindi pwede ang bahala na kami…The power will be in pursuit of identified result, what are the exact deliverables and when will it be finished?” Poe said.

“Powers to be granted must be clear, specific and time-bound,” she added. — VVP, GMA News