“Sambo” proposes incentives to Tomeco personnel

TACLOBAN CITY – Personnel of the Traffic Operation Management Enforcement and Control Office(Tomeco) would soon be receiving an incentive once a proposed ordinance recently submitted to the city council of Tacloban is approved. Authored by Councilor Jerry “Sambo” Yaokasin, the proposed ordinance aims to give incentives to traffic personnel of the city whom Yaokasin described as “vulnerable to various health risks” due to the nature of their work. “We see them guiding our traffic rain or shine and this puts them into risk of getting illnesses,” Yaokasin said. He added that the current income that Tomeco officers are receiving does not compensate with their job. “That is why, they need to be given benefits and this will come from the income they generate from the citation tickets they issued among traffic violators,” Yaokasin explained. Based on his proposed ordinance, part of the fees collected from each citation ticket is to be put in a mutual fund of traffic enforcers, to be used for their health benefits. To ensure that traffic enforcers would not abuse giving citation tickets to motorist just to have bigger income for their mutual fund, a team from the Tomeco will be formed to verify if each citation ticket issued is valid. Yaokasin added that prior to the submittal of the proposed ordinance in the city council he made audience with Tomeco officials to discuss the proposed ordinance with them that gained positive feedback. The city councilor added that he is optimistic that this time, this proposed ordinance will be approved by the city council and will not suffer the same faith to the other ordinances he filed at city council. “I am always optimistic and I hope that this will be approved because many will benefit from it especially our traffic enforcers,” Yaokasin said.