The Metro Manila Council (MMC) announced that it is planning to prohibit the reservation of parking slots by a person standing on it during its council meeting held at the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) head office on Thursday, Nov. 14.
According to MMDA Chairman Romando Artes, the council will study the passing of a resolution prohibiting people from standing on parking slots to reserve them following a series of such incidents in the past few days which, in most cases, resulted in a physical confrontation between the involved individuals.
"Napag usapan kanina na yung possibilidad na magpass ng Metro Manila Council resolution urging the local government units of Metro Manila na pagbawalan po yung pagrereserve ng parking sa pamamagitan ng pagtayo (We have discussed the possibility of the Metro Manila Council passing a resolution urging the local government units of Metro Manila to prohibit the reservation of parking spaces through standing)," Artes said.
He added that the council was supposed to pass the resolution during the meeting, but opted to first study and eventually expand the existing ordinance of Quezon City prohibiting parking slot reservations to also include standing on them.
In an interview following the meeting, Artes explained that the issue is already a cause of concern as more and more people are supporting the use of violence against those standing to reserve the parking slots.
"Nung tinignan namin yung comments nung isang video, although it happened abroad, na sinagsaan nung sasakyan yung tao na nagrereserve, tuwang tuwa yung mga tao. So, ang thinking namin, hindi na dapat umabot sa ganun. Kasi kung ganun ang reaction ng tao, it means they are approving yung violence para paalisin yung tao na nagrereserve, which is baka ganun ang maging mindset ng mga tao na everytime may magrereserve na tao ng parking eh pwedeng sagasaan (In one of the incidents we saw that happened abroad wherein the person reserving the parking slot through standing was rammed by another vehicle, we have observed that the public was in favor of using violence to deter people from reserving parking slots by standing on it. That is what we are preventing: to have the mindset wherein it is okay to ram or hurt people if they are standing on parking spaces)," the chairman noted.