5,000 unregistered tricycles operating in Davao City – councilor
By Ivy Tejano
APOSTOL
DAVAO CITY – The Davao City Council urged operators or drivers to renew or apply for Motorized Tricycle Operator’s Permits after 5,000 unregistered tricycles were discovered operating here.
Councilor Dolce Apostol, chairperson of the Committee on Franchise and Public Utilities, on Tuesday, Feb. 3, said that data from the Motorized Vehicle Franchising and Regulatory Division of the Davao City Transport and Traffic Management Office showed that only 991 tricycle operators hold valid MTOPs as of December 2025.
Apostol said that only 1,062 tricycle units have Motorized Tricycle Registration as of December 2025, indicating that many tricycles are operating in the city without proper registration.
He said that the MTOP summary reflects the Davao City government’s ongoing efforts to maintain an orderly, transparent, and responsive tricycle system.
Apostol said sanctions will be imposed on those who fail to register.
Ethics cases
The Davao City Council recorded 39 cases involving barangay and youth officials, prompting a review and tightening of rules to ensure due process, according to Committee on Ethics and Good Governance Chairman Councilor Arnulfo Ricardo Cabling.
Cabling said that 36 cases were pending when he assumed the committee chairmanship, with eight additional complaints filed since then. The committee has settled five cases.
Pending cases include minor disputes like barangay officials being terminated without due process and more serious such as using public funds to build roads on private property without permission.
He said most of these cases involved elected barangay officials, while one newly filed case concerns a Sangguniang Kabataan chairperson. He added that there are no cases so far against city councilors and city government employees.
Meanwhile, the Davao City Council approved a proposed ordinance during the first reading on Tuesday to establish a centralized data center for all city government offices to safeguard digital information and improve data management.
Councilor Bonz Andrei Militar, the ordinance’s proponent and chairman of the Committee on Information Technology, said the measure aims to create a single, secure facility to host and protect the digital systems of city departments, offices, attached agencies, and instrumentalities.
Militar emphasized that the proposed ordinance seeks to address the lack of a cohesive, integrated data management system, noting that city offices currently operate on disparate servers, fragmented databases, and isolated information systems.
“This setup is not only inefficient but also risky,” Militar said, considering that fragmented data systems expose the local government to security threats, duplication of information and communication technology resources, and operational problems during emergencies.