Disambiguating Philippine Republic Acts: the case of RA 10913

2.1 Linguistic ambiguities: definitions and classifications

Linguistics and other social sciences ground the investigation of language and law, and in this study, the focus is on language and “the law provides relevant data for linguistic analysis and the testing of theories about language” (Schane 2006: 4). The present study centers on the language of a Philippine RA to examine the ambiguities in its provisions. In particular, it analyzes linguistic ambiguities in RA 10913 in order to disambiguate the seemingly unclear specifications in this restricted domain of legal texts. Abrahamson (1999 as cited in Solan 2004: 876) posits:

When numerous courts disagree about the meaning of language, the language cannot be characterized as having plain meaning. Rather, the language is ambiguous; it is capable of being understood in two or more different senses by reasonably well-informed persons even though one interpretation might on careful analysis seem more suitable ….

Schane (2006) intimates the ambiguities arise when clarity and certainty are lacking. Ambiguity, “has more than one interpretation: a highly general sense that pertains to language use, and a more restricted meaning that deals with some fundamental properties about language itself” (p. 3). Boyarskaya (2019: 83) posits that “[in] common parlance, ambiguity suggests more than two interpretations, more than two senses of a word.” Similarly, a word could have several meanings or definitions, and without a context which tells which of the potential meaning is conveyed, a word will be construed as ambiguous. In the context of RAs, provisions in these legal documents, therefore, are ambiguous if they may be interpreted in more than one way. This definition of ambiguity, however, is used rather loosely in this study as “ambiguities are difficult to define precisely because of their ambiguous nature” (Pehar 2001: 164). Pehar further argues that for an expression to be regarded as ambiguous, it must generate not only “at least two different meanings, but also two incompatible and unrelated meanings” (p. 164). Moravcsik (2006 as cited in Slocum 2010) provides the following sentence as an example of a syntactically ambiguous sentence: “Lizards are green and brown” which may have the following interpretations: (1) lizards are a color that falls between green and brown; (2) some parts of the bodies of lizards are green and other parts are brown; (3) some types of lizards are green and other types are brown; and (4) lizards look green under some conditions, but look brown under other conditions. However, there are other forms of ambiguities which may fall in any of the categories discussed in the next section.

2.2 Classifications of ambiguities and disambiguating ambiguities

Ambiguities need to be disambiguated or resolved. Boyarskaya (2019) forwarded that there are at least ten considerations before one resolves ambiguities: 1. What type of ambiguity is it? 2. How it is achieved? 3. Is the ambiguity intended or not? 4. If the ambiguity is intended, is it constructive or purely manipulative? 5. Is it intended ambiguity of the author or intended ambiguity of the text as a whole? 6. Is the whole text ambiguous or are there only separate elements, which are perceived as ambiguous? 7. If the ambiguity is unintended, why does it occur? 8. Does the unintended ambiguity need disambiguation? 9. Are there linguistic means in the target language to express the source language ambiguities? 10. What conceptual, linguistic and extralinguistic information is needed to approach the problem? While these considerations are originally intended for translating legal texts, the present study adapted the said framework as it very well aids in the analysis of ambiguities in legal texts from the lens of production and typology, perception, and resolution or disambiguation.

With respect to production and typology, Table 1 presents several classifications of ambiguities: lexical, semantic, syntactic or structural, contextual, unintended, referential, cross-textual, and pragmatic. How these ambiguities are produced and how they arise, and some examples are succinctly described in the same table. From the perspective of perceptions and effect, ambiguities may result in communication breakdown because of incorrect reference and inferences, the readers’ inadequate knowledge to resolve ambiguities and the readers’ failure to notice ambiguities (Boyarskaya 2019).

Disambiguating ambiguities may be complex and daunting. To Sennet (2021: Ch. 4) “… there are tests and considerations but no firm answers and probably a lot depends on what the ‘best theories’ in linguistics etc. end up looking like.” Zwicky and Sadock (1975), however, proposed ambiguity tests found useful in disambiguating ambiguities. These include: (1) conjunction reduction; (2) ellipsis; (3) contradiction tests; and (4) definitional tests (Sennet 2021). Allen (1957 as cited in Conway 2012) devised a procedure which aids in the systematic detection of unintended syntactic ambiguity. The systematic and analytic method has the following stages: (1) separation of the natural-language statements into their constituent elements, (2) determining whether conditional statements or bi-conditional statements are rather intentional, (3) identification of the constituent element parts of the natural-language statements which represent the conditions of the natural-language statements and the consequences of the natural-language statements, (4) re-arranging the constituent elements in terms of conditional statements and bi-conditional statements and (5) re-writing the natural-language statements in a horizontal form diagram, then in an arrow diagram, and using the arrow diagram for assistance in a clear normalized form (Allen 1957). Yang (2014: 330) proposed “several efficient paths” in disambiguating ambiguities. These include adoption of punctuation marks, change of vocabulary collocation and order, complement of the omitted parts, use of the stress and stop of spoken language, change of structure of sentences, and dependence on linguistic environment. In analyzing ambiguities brought about by the use of ‘and’, ‘or’ and ‘and/or’, Adams and Kaye (2007), provided an effective way of revisiting the ambiguity of ‘and’ and ‘or’ in legal writing by closely looking into the following: (1) subject ambiguity, (2) direct-object ambiguity, (3) subject-and-direct-object ambiguity, (4) multiple verb phrases, (5) object-predicative ambiguity, (6) the effect of adjectives, and (7) the ambiguity of every x and y. Zeller (2018: 14) indicated that the legal parlance has developed a set of criteria that aids in the interpretation of statutory texts: (1) word sense or grammatical interpretation, i.e. interpretation using common language meaning; (2) systematic interpretation which underscores the significant relationship between an expression and its legal context; (3) historical interpretation which involves looking into the drafter’s normative values and intention through historical evidence, and (4) teleological interpretation which underlines the significance of the objective of the law by “abstracting away from the creator.”

The abovementioned strategies are found useful in interpreting the ambiguities in RA 10913. It must be noted, though, that this study limits itself to word sense or grammatical interpretation. Guided by an understanding of what ambiguities are and their different types and how they arise in legal texts and the various disambiguation strategies outlined above, the present study is able to detect and categorize apparent ambiguities in RA 10913 and, eventually, to resolve them so as to provide insights into both thought and interpretation.

4.1 Lexical ambiguity

The analysis commences with a linguistic examination of the title of the act: Anti-Distracted Driving Act. A survey of the literature would show that anti-distracted driving is defined as driving while doing another activity that veers one’s attention away from driving. The National Center for Statistics and Analysis (2019) declares that oftentimes, discussions regarding distracted driving center around cell phone use and texting, but distracted driving also includes other activities such as eating, talking to other passengers, or adjusting the radio or climate controls. As defined by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Driver Distraction Program (2017), distraction is a specific type of inattention that occurs when drivers divert their attention from the driving task to focus on some other activity instead. The report likewise clarifies distraction as “a subset of inattention (which also includes fatigue, and physical and emotional conditions of the driver).”

In the context of the Philippine act in question, the title of the act restricts itself to basically prohibiting the use of electronic gadgets referred to as electronic entertainment and computing devices such as cellular phones while driving on the road. Distraction, as pointed out earlier, comes in various forms and thus it could have been explicitly indicated in the title of the act that it is about the prohibition of the use of cellular phones and other electronic gadgets while driving. The act could have been renamed into something that reflects the proscription of the use of electronic devices while on the road (Figure 1).

Figure 1:

Disambiguation of the title of RA 10913.

It is also unclear if anti-distracted driving modifies act. i.e., an act or a law penalizing distracted driving, or that anti-distracted modifies driving alone and not the act. Here, hyphenating the compound pre-modifier anti-distracted driving, i.e., anti-distracted-driving may minimize linguistic ambiguities (see Figure 1). In the noun phrase anti-distracted-driving act (1b) (as opposed to anti-distracted driving act (1a), which may be construed as a driving act that is anti-distracted) act is taken as a noun described as anti-distracted driving. In the present form of the act, however, it is possible that the drafters meant that it is distracted driving that the law is against and that the act is not a kind of a driving act that is anti-distracted, which presumes that there are driving acts that already exist and that there is one driving act now that is particularly anti-distraction. The hyphenated compound modifier or phrasal adjective anti-distracted-driving (1b) may clarify meaning, straightaway telling the reader that the words modify the noun jointly, not independently and that this hyphenated phrasal modifier expresses a single thought (i.e., all words together modify the noun act). The ambiguity results from the lack of representation of scope in the sentence, since it is unclear if the noun phrase driving act is modified by anti-distracted in its specifier or if the adjective anti-distracted-driving is the specifier of the noun act.

Furthermore, as reflected in the topmost section of the act, Republic Act No. 10913, is “an act defining and penalizing distracted driving.” One may therefore presuppose that it is distracted driving (which is the offshoot or the repercussion) that is penalized rather than the use of ‘electronic entertainment and communication devices’ (the cause of distraction) while driving on the road. In addition to this ambiguity issue is the question of whether a collective body promulgated the act or two separate government legislative bodies deliberated and approved of the act. As it is, the document says: “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress assembled”. The absence of the determiner the before House of Representatives implies that the Senate and the House of Representatives constitute only one institution, which ever since has not been the case as far as the Philippine government structure is concerned.

Motorist is defined as a person driving a motor vehicle. It is logical to say and it seems easy to understand that a motorist is someone who drives a motor vehicle. What makes the definition seemingly ambiguous is the absence of the exact qualities or merits ascribed to the “motorist” driving a motor vehicle. It may be posited that the “motorist” cannot simply be a person. Oxford Dictionary defines “person” as any human being regarded as an individual. Cambridge Dictionary equates person with “human” and refer to it as a man, woman, or child. In the Act, it is reasonable to say that the person being referred to is not simply an individual or a human being, not simply a man, a woman or a child. That person is an individual, in general, and a motorist who has legal rights and obligations, in particular.

In the Philippines, for a motorist to be considered a professional or a non-professional driver, he/she should be issued a license after passing the driver’s examination administered by a government agency, e.g., the Land Transportation Office. The other requirements which must be met include: (1) must be at least eighteen (18) years old; (2) must be physically and mentally fit to operate a motor vehicle; (3) must be able to read and write Filipino, English or the applicable local dialect; (3) must be a holder of a valid SP (student permit) issued at least thirty (30) days prior to the application; and (4) in addition, for foreigners, the applicant must have been in the Philippines for at least one (1) month with proof that he/she will stay in the country for at least one (1) year from date of application (see lto.gov.ph).

Since penalties include “a fine of fifteen thousand pesos (PI5,000.00) and suspension of driver’s license for three (3) months for the third offense,” (RA 10913, p. 4), it should be assumed that only those licensed motorists are liable in case of an offense and motorists who were not issued any license are not. The term motorist, therefore, has to be disambiguated to mean that it is a person driving a motor vehicle, and regardless of age, gender, status in life, and whether he/she is licensed or not, is covered in the act. If an offender is a non-license holder, neither a professional nor a non-professional driver, it has to be made that s/he falls within the definition of motorist and thus should be apprehended.

Finally, the term motor vehicle is also ambiguous. In the above line of argument, (considering that the penalty involves suspension of driver’s license) then the motor vehicles referred to should be specified, which should be limited to those motor vehicles that require a license to be driven. E-bikes, for instance, are motorized but one does not need a license to drive one. A similar case is that of Section 2(e) of R.A. No. 10883 “New Anti-Carnapping Act of 2016”, which states: (e) Motor vehicle refers to any vehicle propelled by any power other than muscular power using the public highways, except road rollers, trolley cars, street sweepers, sprinklers, lawn mowers, bulldozers, graders, forklifts, amphibian trucks, and cranes if not used on public highways; vehicles which run only on rails or tracks; and tractors, trailers and traction engines of all kinds used exclusively for agricultural purposes. Trailers having any number of wheels, when propelled or intended to be propelled by attachment to a motor vehicle, shall be classified as a separate motor vehicle with no power rating.

4.2 Ambiguities engendered by “and”

Torbert (2014) posits that the conjunction “and” exhibits semantic ambiguity. It may have three senses: several sense, joint sense, and combined joint and several sense. In the phrase: “charitable and educational institutions,” these senses may be illustrated through the following:

1. the several sense of “and” is “institutions that are either charitable or educational,”

2. the joint sense is “institutions that are both charitable and educational,”

3. the combined joint and several sense is “institutions that are charitable, educational, or both.”

The anti-distracted-driving act penalizes motorists who are caught using electronic entertainment and computing devices while in motion on the road. Terms used in the act include:

electronic entertainment and computing device: any handheld electronic device capable of digital information processing, recording, capturing or displaying and computing operations such as, but not limited to, laptop, computers, tablets, video game consoles and calculators; (p. 2).

The ambiguity associated with and seems to be that which springs from (1) adjectives that modify a noun and are linked by and as in electronic entertainment and computing devices and (2) nouns that are modified by adjectives and linked by and as in electronic entertainment devices and computing devices.

Here is an example of the basic possible meanings of the noun devices modified by two adjectives culled from the act (see Figure 2):

Figure 2:

Disambiguation of “electronic entertainment and computing device”.

The ambiguity lies in this premise: whether a device which is used both for electronic entertainment and for computing would fall within both the group of electronic entertainment devices and the group of computing devices or would be excluded from each group for having both attributes. In the act, it is unclear whether the provision may be construed as either:

1. a driver who is caught using a device which is used both for electronic entertainment and computing (2b) will be apprehended or

2. a driver who is caught using a device used either only for computing, e.g., calculator, and not for entertainment or a driver who is caught using a device used for entertainment only and not for computing, e.g., video game consoles (2a), will be penalized or

3. a driver who is caught using a device that can hardly do both functions of providing entertainment and performing calculations will be apprehended

The question that arises, therefore, is that if a person used a computing device such as a calculator while on the road (whether the use of it did not cause them or caused them to be distracted from driving) may they argue that they should not be apprehended because a calculator is not a device capable of providing entertainment if the interpretation of device mentioned in the act is a device capable of performing two functions: electronic entertainment and computing. The law is not explicit as regards which category of devices is covered.

Disambiguation may be engendered if devices is understood as two separate categories: (1) electronic entertainment devices, e.g., tablets capable of producing entertainment (music, videos, and movies) and (2) computing devices, e.g., calculators, (2c). If this will be the case, a driver who deliberately used their calculator, a computing device not capable of providing entertainment, while driving will be apprehended. Similarly, a driver caught using their video game console, an electronic entertainment device not capable of computing, while driving will likewise be apprehended. Otherwise, if (2a) is taken as the true definition of devices, only those drivers who used devices capable of performing computations and capable of providing electronic entertainment at the same time, e.g. cellular phones, while driving will be apprehended.

Furthermore, in the following provisions (3), it seems uncertain if the conjunction ‘and’ should be read conjunctively or disjunctively. If the construction is that ‘and’ is conjunctive, then the motor vehicle held liable in case of legal disputes must be owned by individuals, i.e. legal entities, and, at the same time, and must be owned by juridical persons, i.e., non-human legal entities such as a corporation or a partnership (3b) (see Figure 3). If the appropriate construction is that ‘and’ is disjunctive, a motor vehicle that is owned by individuals who are not juridical persons and a motor vehicle owned by juridical persons who are, by definition, not regarded as human legal entities, and not by the so-called individuals (which by the way the act hardly qualifies) at the same time (3a) may not be considered accountable.

Figure 3:

Disambiguation of “any motor vehicle owned by individuals and juridical persons for private use”.

Possible interpretations of (3) may be represented as follows where (i) is taken to mean a motor vehicle which is both individual-owned and juridical-owned, in other words, the conditions connected by ‘and’ must be each fulfilled to produce the consequence stipulated in the RA and where (ii) is held to mean a motor vehicle which is owned by individuals only and any motor vehicles owned by juridical persons only.

4.3 Syntactic ambiguity

Shown below are two competing interpretations of the following definitions provided in RA 10913:

(4a) and (4b) may be represented, respectively, as follows (see Figure 4):

Figure 4:

Example of two competing interpretations of definitions in RA 10913.

In (4), the ambiguity lies on the use of ‘digital’ (4a) and ‘digital information’ (4b) as modifiers. In (4a), digital is used as an attributive modifier because it attributes a quality or characteristic to each of the nouns that follows, i.e. digital information processing, digital recording, digital capturing, digital displaying, and digital computing operations. In other words, in the case of RA 10913, the law covers devices that are capable of doing digital information processing, digital recording (but not necessarily digital information), digital capturing (but not necessarily digital information), etc. The modifier ‘digital’ describes each of the processes that comes after it.

In (4b), however, it is ‘digital information’ that is taken as the phrasal attributive modifier, i.e. digital information processing, digital information recording, digital information capturing, digital information displaying and digital information computing operations. Put in another way, the RA takes into account devices that can process digital information, record digital information, capture digital information etc. The focus is on the object of the processes involved, that is, information.

Furthermore, the definition in (4) contains a modifier which makes it difficult for the readers to keep the modifiers straight. It is rather ambiguous because of a relation between parts of the statement. It makes use of a modifier defined as a “ssubordinate element in an endocentric structure. It is a word group that affects the meaning of a headword in that it describes, limits, intensifies, and/or adds to the meaning of the head” (Berry 2018). In (4), it is uncertain if the headword being modified is ‘information processing’ or ‘processing’ alone. As it is, a kind of information processing that is digital is different from processing of digital information. Modification, however, may no longer be an issue in the case of (4) had the RA said: any handheld electronic device capable of [digital information processing], recording, capturing, displaying, and computing operations in which a predictive modifier is used, i.e. digital information processing device, recording device, capturing device and so on which do not necessarily deal with digital information.

4.4 Ambiguities engendered by “or”

Or introduces alternatives but at times, it can be “inclusive,” meaning A or B, or both, or it can be “exclusive,” meaning A or B, but not both. Dickerson (1965 as cited in Adams and Kaye 2007) avers that “in most cases ‘or’ is used in the inclusive rather than the exclusive sense” and that, therefore, in the absence of special circumstances, drafters can rely on or to convey the sense of “A or B or both” (p. 1172). In the case of the following provision from RA 10913, one may intuit that there is a need to disambiguate if a vehicle which may be involved in an offense is one that is leased or one that is owned or one that is both leased and owned by a foreign mission and its staff. In some instances, however, one would feel that the provision is sufficiently clear.

Diplomatic motor vehicle – any motor vehicle leased or owned by a foreign mission and its staff for their official use

Allen (1957 as cited in Conway 2012) recommends using ‘OR₁’ as the within-sentence connector, and ‘OR₂’ as the between-sentence connector. On this analysis the natural-language sentence ‘Andrew wants chocolates or chips.’ when meaning ‘Andrew wants [chocolates or chips]’ would be written as ‘Andrew wants chocolates OR ₁ chips’; when the drafter wants to mean ‘[Andrew wants chocolates] or [Andrew wants chips]’ the drafter writes ‘Andrew wants chocolates OR ₂ chips’. This tool for analyzing ambiguity engendered by or is applied in the following RA 10913 provision:

Finally, in the above provision, ‘or’ may be read as meaning a motor vehicle that is ‘either leased or owned’ but ‘not a motor vehicle that is ‘both leased and owned.’ The phrase ‘a motor vehicle leased or [a motor vehicle] owned’ is an example of exclusive disjunction where both alternatives, i.e. vehicle leased and vehicle owned, cannot be tenable.

4.5 Ambiguities engendered by “and/or”

RA 10913 states:

The literal sense of and/or in the above extract is “both or either,” so that owners and/or operators means (1) “owners,” (2) “operators,” or (3) “both owners and operators.” This makes the drafter’s intent quite difficult to discern. The ambiguity relates to the question of (1) when and under what conditions will both the owner and the operator together with the offender be charged and (2) when and under what conditions will only the owner and the offender be penalized and (3) when and under what conditions will only the operator and the offender be apprehended. Confusion may not arise if, in actuality, the owner and the operator of the vehicle involved are one and the same person. However, when the owner and the operator are two different individuals, it is indeterminate if only one of them shall be penalized. As it is, RA 10913 hardly indicates any circumstantial elements or a semantic ground that would help one discern that and/or should be construed as both or either.

In the case of the above provision, two alternatives may be forwarded to engender clarity. The first is to replace and/or with owners or operators or both. The second is to simply use or and depend on the context to determine whether the or is intended to be inclusive or exclusive. For instance:

Inclusive or: This section shall principally apply to the owners and/or operators of … (the owners, the operators, or both)

Exclusive or: This section shall principally apply to the owners and/or operators of … (the owners or the operators, but not both.)

The word either in this case may also be used to convey mutual exclusivity. However, if the function of or is clear and discernible from the context, it is not necessary to use either as a conjunction. As an additional note, and/or is generally used when either one or both of the options may be true. The following examples may be considered:

In (6a), the act intends to apprehend both owners and operators. In contrast, (6b) specifies that the act shall apprehend only one of them. Finally, (6c) combines these two and specifies that the violation of the act may result in apprehending one or the other -- or both. A further look into the provision leads one to recognize the absence of the determiner the before operators, which would mean that the owner who is being referred to is also the operator at the same time. The non-repetition of the before operators emphasizes that one and the same person is objectified. If this is the case, then there is nothing to disambiguate. However, from a syntactic point of view, the article the is needed before operators since the act is talking about separate coordinate nouns, i.e., owners and operators.

4.6 Vagueness

Another potential cause of ambiguity in RA 10913 is the term “motion”. Section 4 of the Act says:

Vagueness and incompleteness of information stem from the fact that the term motion is insufficiently qualified in the above provision. If a motorist is caught using an electronic device while the car is “slowly in motion” because of heavy traffic or other reasons, the question of whether he should be regarded as a violator or not has to be addressed. Vehicular motion, in a layman’s term, may be very fast, fast, slow, very slow and so forth (more technical terms associated with vehicular motion are acceleration, speed and velocity) hence it has to be made clear that as long as the vehicle is not in a stationary position, the motorist driving the vehicle is subject to penalty.

The physical space where the vehicular movement takes place likewise needs clarification. As it is, the Act suggests that it covers vehicles and other forms of conveyances which are “operated or driven along public thoroughfares, highways or streets or under circumstances where public safety is under consideration” (p. 3). It may be intuited that private spaces, such as subdivisions, mall parking lots and the like are not covered in the provision since the modifier public describes all the nouns that come after it, i.e., thoroughfares, highways, streets. More so, thoroughfares, highways or streets are hardly categorized as major roads or minor roads, hence the physical space intuited in the Act does not refer to “everywhere and anywhere” to mean that the anti-distracted driving act covers the entire geographical location or country. Another categorization of the term public is publicly owned and operated, covered public service concessionaires (such as skyways, all tolls), or public-private partnership.

Another part of Section 4 which needs clarification is the phrase temporarily stopped at a red light. Synonymous with the term temporarily are momentarily and briefly. If an alleged driver-offender temporarily stopped at a red light for only about a minute or less (if a minute or less is a calculable equivalent of temporarily), for example, and after a minute (which may no longer be calculated as a numerical equivalent of temporarily), he is still stuck before the red light and he decided to use his cellular phone for some reason while the car is in a stationary position, a potential question has to do with whether he is liable for the offense even if the car is no longer in motion and the stop is no longer momentary. The vehicle remains motionless, and that public safety is probably uncompromised because the car no longer in motion may not pose any danger to others. It is therefore possible that the motorist would argue that the provision does not say that he should be accountable.

4.7 Referential ambiguity

Referential ambiguity is illustrated in the following provision:

The absence of the phrase in a motor vehicle which was as shown above renders the statement ambiguous or rather puzzling because of its ungrammaticality. Temporarily stopped (or the correct form: in a motor vehicle which was temporarily stopped) at a red light, at first glance, is construed to be an adjective clause that modifies the noun vehicle. Obviously, in the statement, ‘vehicle’ is the inanimate object that is capable of stopping and thus the noun being modified by the supposed to be an adjective clause “temporarily stopped.” A deeper analysis of the statement, however, could lead one to conclude that, referential ambiguity is engendered since it is possibly unclear if ‘temporarily stopped’ refers to a vehicle or a motorist who may also be considered diplomatic, public or private. Moreover, the adjective clause which are hereby declared unlawful, because of the complexity or lengthiness of the statement may be associated with either the performance of a motorist of any of the act in the provision or the acts in a motor vehicle in motion or (in a motor vehicle which was) temporarily stopped. Unsurprisingly, which are hereby declared unlawful, a non-restrictive clause may be construed as something that refers to the idea of the entire preceding sentence, i.e., performing distracted driving or to the motor vehicle which temporarily stopped at a red light. This further engenders referential ambiguity because the context of the above RA provisions hardly allows the readers to refer to or pick out properly what it purportedly intends.

4.8 Cross-textual ambiguity

Section 8 of RA 10913 states:

1. A fine of five thousand pesos (P5.000.00) for the first offense;

2. A fine of ten thousand pesos (P10,000) for the second offense;

3. A fine of fifteen thousand pesos (PI5,000.00) and suspension of driver’s license for three (3) months for the third offense; and

4. A fine of twenty thousand pesos (P20,000.00) and revocation of driver’s license:

Provided, That the implementing agency may increase the amount of fine herein imposed once every five (5) years in the amount not exceeding ten percent (10 %) of the existing rates sought to be increased which shall take effect only upon publication in at least two (2) newspapers of general circulation: Provided, further. That a driver of a public utility vehicle, a school bus, a school service vehicle, a common carrier hauling volatile, flammable or toxic material, or a driver who commits an act classified herein as distracted driving within a fifty (50)-meter radius from the school premises shall be subject to a penalty of thirty thousand pesos (P30,000.00) and suspension of one’s driver’s license for three (3) months.

While it is clear in (a), (b), and (c) that three is a corresponding penalty for the first, second and third offense, it seems indeterminate to who, when, and to what degree of offense will the fine of P20,000 and suspension of driver’s license be imposed. What engenders cross-textual ambiguity here is the ‘open-endedness’ of (d). Furthermore, it also seems ambiguous if the P30,000 fine and suspension of driver’s license shall be imposed upon “a driver of a public utility vehicle, a school bus, a school service vehicle, a common carrier hauling volatile, flammable or toxic material, or a driver who commits an act classified herein as distracted driving within a fifty (50)-meter radius from the school premises” during the first, or second or third offense and so on.

4.9 Pragmatic ambiguities

RA 10913 states that:

1. Using a mobile communications device to write, send, or read a text-based communication or to make or receive calls, and other similar acts.

2. Using an electronic entertainment or computing device to play games, watch movies, surf the internet, compose messages, read e-books, perform calculations, and other similar acts.

What requires disambiguation in the above provision is the phrase “and other similar acts.” What one can do with a mobile communications device is as many as the applications (or app) in it. The said phrase was used twice in the Act and is poorly contextualized. The said phrase may be construed as other unspecified things of the same class and the brevity of the provision is rather daunting. An Act which requires imposition of penalties could have been more specific as far as instructions or coverage for its application are concerned. If one argues that changing one’s cellular phone’s settings or looking at the time in one’s mobile device do not fall within “and other similar acts”, the drafters could have anticipated that such acts are not necessarily similar to playing games, watching movies, surfing the internet, composing messages, reading e-books, and performing calculations.

1. The provisions of this Act shall not apply to motorists of motor vehicles which are not in motion, except those which are stopped momentarily at a red light, or are pulled over to the side of the road in compliance with a traffic regulation.

The above provisions seem to exempt motorists of motor vehicles which are not in motion because they are in the middle of heavy traffic (heavy traffic in the Philippine major roads such as EDSA would mean cars are not moving at all for a period of time). Motorists inside a vehicle which is at a full stop distant from the traffic lights, may therefore not be apprehended since only those which stopped (or are stopped) momentarily at a red light are covered in the Act. The passive construction “are stopped at a red light” likewise engenders ambiguity for the action verb “stop” requires an agent or a doer. It is unclear whether motorists “who are stopped at a red light” (which implies someone or something caused them to stop) or “motorists who stopped at a red light” (which means motorists who intentionally or advertently stopped before the red traffic light and motorists who used their mobile devices while on a full stop) are the ones to be apprehended. On the other hand, while the use of the passive construction “or are pulled over to the side of the road in compliance with a traffic regulation” is grammatically sound, what remains uncertain is the question of why motorists whose vehicles are pulled over to the side of the road are to be apprehended if they are already parked on the roadsides and are in compliance with a traffic regulation.