By Dominic B. dela Cruz
Staff Reporter
Laoag City—Tricycle drivers and operators in this city thanked the city government here for lowering the tricycle drivers’ identification card from PHP 100 to PHP 5.
Laoag councilor Jaybee Baquiran made the announcement of the decrease in the cost after the Sangguniang Panlungsod here passed a resolution directing Laoag treasury office officer-in-charge Arturo Diomedes Gayban to “cease and desist” in collecting PHP 100 for the TDIC in.
Mr. Baquiran stressed that the PHP 100 TDIC fee has no legal basis as there is no ordinance that justifies the collection of such fee.
Mr. Gayban, however explained that the PHP 100 fee they collect is for the ID picture and lamination of TDICs.
He also disclosed that they only began collecting PHP 100 for the TDIC after a private person began illegally printing and reproducing similar TDICs. The said person, he added, was arrested. He did not identify the said person.
He also insisted that they began collecting PHP 100 to “protect the city government and tricycle drivers.”
The treasury OIC also said the cost of the TDIC they are issuing is “much cheaper” than the illegal ones.
Reacting to this, Laoag councilor Juan Conrado A. Respicio II stated that City Ordinance No. 907, Series of 1984 Section 5 provides: “A tricycle must be operated by drivers who are holders of professional drivers licenses issued by BLTB Agencies in Laoag City and Ilocos Norte only that the driver must secure an ID card issued by the CTO upon payment of P5.00”.
Mr. Respicio then suggested the council to amend this provision if the city government will continue to collect PHP 100 instead of the PHP 5, which the ordinance requires.
Meanwhile, Laoag Vice Mayor and council presiding officer Vicentito M. Lazo said there is an excess collection of PHP 95, which constitutes “illegal exaction.”
“And if there is any tricycle driver who would want to charge the persons responsible for such collection, then they [collectors] have to answer that in the appropriate court,” Mr. Lazo added.
The lowering of the TDIC cost to PHP 5 came from Laoag councilor Jason Bader Perrera, which Mr. Gayban accepted.
Mr. Gayban though appealed for the amendment of the said provision as the collected fees are for the maintenance of the equipment they use for the TDIC production.
The Ilocos Timeslearned that the PHP 100 TDIC fee began in 2016 when Mr. Gayban became the treasury OIC.