Don’t like falling in line? Well, soon you could go to jail for it.
“Party-list Representatives Christopher S. Co and Rodel M. Batocabe (Ako Bicol) have filed House Bill 3953, or ‘An Act Penalizing the Act of Cutting in Line, Breaking Lines, and Other Related Acts and for Other Purposes,'” reports Gil C. Cabacungan in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The punishable acts referred to in the bill cover the following:
1. Jumping a queue or using any device or scheming to save a slot or space in a queue
2. Breaking up a line or employing devices and schemes to disrupt the order and cause confusion in a physical or virtual queue
3. Using any physical force, threats, intimidation or influence by virtue of power, social status, prominence, or reputation to cut in, break up, or disrupt the order of a line
4. Employing devices, schemes, and deceit in order to cut in, break up, or disrupt the order of a queue
5. Knowingly giving consent to these acts by allowing another person to insert, cut in, break up or disrupt the order of a line.
Moreover, the report said “the bill also provides that areas requiring people to fall in line should have signs defining the queuing system and that the law would apply not only to persons but also to their motor vehicles, boats, pails, containers, bags, sacks and other objects used for providing, procuring, accepting or receiving goods or services.”
Under the bill, only senior citizens, pregnant women, and persons who by reason of health, national security or public interest need immediate goods and services may be allowed to “jump the line.”
Violators will be penalized with either a PHP10,000 fine or one month imprisonment or both. If the violation is committed in areas declared as being under emergency or calamity conditions, the bill imposes a higher penalty of up to P25,000 in fine or six months of jail time.
Photo by John Paul Solis (Wikimedia Commons)
