Several personalities who got the nastiest electoral defeats in Quezon City history are now leading the charge against the implementation of the No Contact Apprehension Program (NCAP), a digital technology-based traffic violation detection system that is being used by several Metro cities, including Manila, Valenzuela, San Juan, Paranaque and two cities in Northern Luzon.
One of them, Atty. Ariel Inton, reportedly leading a group of lawyers for commuter safety, got the most beating in any electoral contest in the city, when he ran and lost for the nth time as a member of the Fourth district council of the Quezon City government. He is now registering his voice as the loudest against No Contact Apprehension Program or NCAP, a program supported by his political nemesis, Mayor Joy Belmonte.
Inton got the boot after committing several missteps as Belmonte’s former traffic enforcement chief. Â Sources within city hall told this writer that one of the most unacceptable things that Inton reportedly did was when he hired a towing company based in Pasig city to service Quezon City. Since then, colleagues in the media said, Inton had made it his cause to oppose policies of the Belmonte-led local government.
The public does not know this: Inton reportedly maintains clients from public utility vehicle (PUV) operators, specifically taxi operators. Inton is not concerned with the welfare of drivers– he is reportedly lawyering for operators who are not agreeable with the provision of the law that requires vehicle owners responsible for paying fines for traffic violations. Nothing wrong with this except that Inton must be clear as to who he is defending or protecting–drivers or operators?
As a lawyer, Inton knows that the QC government is just following the law because the transportation code says that the registered owner is responsible for his own vehicle. Yet, he wants the drivers to pay for the violations.
In a press conference, Inton and several personalities, among them the self-proclaimed head of the TNVS, encouraged complainants to go to them. Inton probably forgot that under the Quezon City traffic ordinance, the Traffic Adjudication Board or TAB has jurisdiction over complaints related to NCAP. Instead of spewing venom against the program, Inton should have followed the ethics for lawyers and urged the public to trust the TAB.
Inton is on a warpath–for the wrong reasons. That explains why only one or two transport organizations are supporting him, and one of them, is known for not opposing the proliferation of collorum vans during the pandemic. Anyway, that’s another story.
