BAGUIO CITY – The City Council approved on first reading a proposed ordinance prohibiting graffiti and other related nuisances by creating a procedure for its implementation and for other purposes.
The ordinance authored by Councilor Edgar M. Avila . said the Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) and the Public Order and Safety Division (POSD) shall be authorized to enforce the provisions of the ordinance and both offices shall jointly create a team whose function shall be solely dedicated to the pursuit to the fight against graffiti and other nuisances.
The team will be mandated to receive all complaints of violations of the local legislative measure and to enter upon real property in the conduct of official business pursuant to the ordinance, and shall also provide notices to affected property owners required by the measure and to take such other actions as reasonably necessary to accomplish its purpose, including, but not limited to, creating a program to assist property owners for the removal of graffiti.
Under the ordinance, marker means any indelible marker or similar, with a tip that, at its broadest width is greater than on-eight inch, containing an ink that is not water soluble; graffiti means any unauthorized inscription, word, figure or design that is marked, etched, scratched, drawn or painted in any surface of public or private property, including, but not limited to, buildings, structures or places; graffiti implement means an aerosol paint container, a felt tip marker, or a pen stick or etching tool capable of scaring glass, metal, concrete or wood, while paint stick or graffiti stick means any device containing a solid form of paint, chalk, wax, epoxy or other similar substance capable of being applied to a surface pressure.
The ordinance provided any property owner, occupant or agent who maintains graffiti on property as described in the measure shall be required to remove said graffiti.
The measure empowered the team to inspect lands where a nuisance is suspected to exist or is actually existing and in the event inspection reveals graffiti, the team shall notify the owner or possessor of such existence with a request to remove the graffiti within ten days from receipt, and should he or she not be located in the said property, notice shall be by registered mail with return receipt. Likewise, the team shall physically post a notice on the property which states that a nuisance exists and the notice shall demand that the owner shall remedy the condition or the city shall abate the nuisance at the expense of the owner or possessor.
He explained a graffiti ordinance must by now be passed and implemented and that his proposal focuses not on the person making the graffiti but also the owner, possessor, administrator, manager, agent and the life of the property upon whom the graffiti was made, and that the graffiti in the city has grown into epidemic proportions with all sorts having appeared and mushroomed destroying not only the beauty but also the city’s greenery.
By Dexter A. See
