Through Executive Order No. 30, Davao City passed its strictest speed limit ordinance yet. The ordinance was a reaction to a series of motor vehicle accidents purportedly brought about by drivers driving too fast.
It's fair to assume that many residents grumbled at the limits. Most argued that the speeds set didn't optimize cars' performances but instead seriously affected cars' engines. But most citizens readily understood that the limits were necessary for everyone's safety.
This leads us to the fun part. The ordinance does, in fact, suffer from a serious flaw which makes it revocable at any given moment. It only takes one motivated person to file a petition to the Supreme Court to have the ordinance declared void.
This particular case is our precedent. In Primicias vs. The Municipality of Urdaneta (G.R. No. L-26702), the ordinance regulating the municipality's speed limits for vehicles was rendered invalid for contravening the provisions of a relevant statute, R.A. 4136 at that time. R.A. 4136 also regulated the speed limits of vehicles on all roads in the country.
Thus, when there's a conflict between an ordinance and a statute, the provisions of the statute must prevail.
Unfortunately (lest you celebrate prematurely), the ordinance is more or less a copy of the statute. Any conflict that may arise comes from the minute details such as whether this specific road is subject to this speed limit and so on.
So what we have here is an ordinance that merely reiterates the speed limits as set by Congress. This in turn makes everything I wrote about revoking the ordinance moot and inconsequential. But still, if ever the statute does get amended, at least you know there's going to be a way to scrap this ordinance.
Have a nice week everyone.
