Road workers, PAO lawyers: How many are they and how many do they serve?

Road workers or street sweepers and traffic enforcers are often spotted on major roads cleaning or managing traffic.

Apart from dealing with the extreme heat, they are also sometimes seen dealing with negligent drivers.

From 2012 to 2022, 314 Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) street sweepers were hit by motorists, according to data compiled by the ABS-CBN Investigative Research Group.

Out of the 314, 45 were recorded in 2022, the highest in the past 10 years.

• Pamilya ng nasagasaang street sweeper, desididong ituloy ang kaso vs driver

MMDA street sweepers are tasked to clean main roads and national highways of Metro Manila, covering 1,160.2 kilometers.

With MMDA having 1,245 street sweepers as of December 2022, this means that there is one street sweeper per kilometer of road.

Meanwhile, MMDA traffic enforcers tally higher numbers, falling at 2,508 enforcers deployed throughout the major roads of Metro Manila (except in Pateros).

And while they manage the flow of traffic, some traffic enforcers are still involved in accidents — 70 percent of the time under the hands of negligent drivers.

In some cases, motorists even drove away after the accident.

From 2012 to 2022, 74 MMDA traffic enforcers were injured and 1 was killed, averaging 7 incidents per year.

Based on the data from MMDA, Quezon City is the most dangerous city for enforcers since 42 out of the mentioned 74 incidents were from the said city.

Last March, MMDA implemented a 30-minute "heat stroke break" for traffic enforcers and street sweepers to cope with the rising temperature during the dry season.

• Traffic enforcers, street sweepers to get 30-minute 'heat stroke break': MMDA

PAO LAWYERS

As of 2022, the Public Attorney's Office (PAO) has 2,293 lawyers, which represent less than 10 percent of the 24,413 newly qualified lawyers in the last 10 years, based on the Supreme Court's count.

According to PAO's data, its lawyers assisted 11,729,353 clients and handled 850,753 cases.

This means that on average, each lawyer assisted 4,887 clients and handled 354 cases, or 1.2 cases and 16 clients a day per PAO lawyer.