Unlike what the gospel preaches about humility with more power and money, vehicles of government officials and staff oozing with pride and arrogance recklessly plough their way through traffic snarls and slow-moving vehicles, in the process hitting other vehicles along their way or worse, pedestrians and other bystanders on the road.
Reports of government vehicles without the mandated Compulsory Third Party Liability (CTPL) insurance have been rising, alarming Senator Raffy Tulfo.
Tulfo gave a privilege speech Wednesday, February 28, in which he cited numerous reports he had received of government vehicles involved in accidents, without CTPL insurance, as though they were exempt from the law.
Unlicensed government vehicles
The senator mentioned a report of Land Transportation Office (LTO) chief Vigor Mendoza that there are 24.7-million delinquent vehicles that are not registered or have expired registration.
Many of them are owned by government agencies.
The CTPL was made a legal requirement for registering vehicles in view of 160 accidents per day in Metro Manila since 2021.
In 2021, among Metro Manila cities, Quezon City led the most accidents with 21,978 followed by Manila with 4,666 and Makati with 4,099, according to a report in the Liberty Insurance website.
The top three causes of road accidents are loss of control of the vehicles with 81 instances recorded; human error with 6,909 and No Accident Factor with 51,345 occurrences (which means no recorded causes of the accident).
The CTPL is a mandatory motor car insurance policy that any car or motorcycle owner must have before registering their vehicles each year with the Land Transportation Office.
With a CTPL policy, the driver of a vehicle is protected from any liability from injuries or death of a third party as a result of the accident.
More simply put, the CTPL covers only the third-party victim on the road and not the driver/passenger of the insured vehicle.
The CTPI should cover not just physical injuries or death of third-persons but all damages that may be encountered by a government vehicle. This may be damage to the other vehicle, damage to property, and physical injury and death of the passenger of the government vehicle.
With the limit of P100,000 for all vehicle types, the CTPL policy pays for the third party’s: 1) death indemnity, including burial and funeral expenses; 2) bodily injuries; and 3) permanent disablement.
Accidents
Tulfo challenged the LTO to “hold the government official liable for not registering a government vehicle, including the head of the department in charge with such registration.”
“As the government, we have to acknowledge and take responsibility for damages that may be caused by our operations. This will cover the people who have suffered damages, and it will also teach our own people to be responsible in performing their duties,” he said.
Tulfo said he receives, almost weekly, complaints from people in his radio program–a victim of physical injuries or damage to property, or death of a loved one, from an accident involving a government vehicle.
He showed videos as samples of such victims of government vehicles. A woman hit by an ambulance of Sapian municipality in Capiz in June 2023; a person bumped by a multicab of a barangay; a tricycle driver whose tricycles was hit by an ambulance of Cardona, Rizal municipality, reported Business Mirror.
“My concern is regarding the frequency of cases and most of the victims ending up holding an empty bag,” Tulfo said.
The primary problem involves the lack of even the most basic form of insurance covering vehicles, the CTPL.
“We should not be surprised that many people” victimized by government-owned vehicles cannot have just compensation, the senator pointed out.
Such negligence, arrogance and power-tripping are what alienates the common tao with the government.
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