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Friday, March 29, 2024

Rody ready to abolish Road Board

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The Palace on Tuesday said President Rodrigo Duterte will sign a bill abolishing the Road Board of the Department of Public Works and Highways but House Minority Leader and Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez said the move was aimed at enabling officials to illegally park funds in infrastructure projects for later use.

Suarez, former vice chairman of the Road Board, said officials informed him that the proposal being pushed by former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez of Davao del Norte to abolish the office was seen as a source of funding.

Without naming names, Suarez said “some former congressional leaders” had asked for “sizable amounts of money from the Road Board and threatened to abolish it if it refused to do so.

READ: House asserts oversight role

“Members of the Road Board told me they were being asked by some congressional leaders to dedicate an amount of money for ‘parking projects.’ They wanted to park these projects in various places and said if they were refused, they would abolish to board,” Suarez said in Filipino at a news conference Tuesday.

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Alvarez and his allies earlier authored a bill in the House proposing the abolition of the Road Board.

Parking refers to listing funding under the budget of a congressional district for use later for a different project and in a different congressional district.

Suarez dismissed the allegation of Alvarez that Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who opposed the abolition of the Road Board, wanted to control the road tax known as the Motor Vehicle User’s Charge (MVUS).

House Majority Leader Rep. Rolando Andaya, meanwhile, said the President could not simply sign the bill because the plenary has withdrawn support for it.

At the Palace, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said the President would sign the bill—even as the House and Senate disagreed over the fate of the measure.

“That’s what’s needed,” Panelo said of the move to abolish the Road Board. “We want the funds to be returned to the Treasury and let Congress appropriate [them] again for a specific purpose.”

Panelo said the P45-billion road user’s tax should be reverted to the National Treasury and said the President would sign the bill abolishing the Road Board as soon as it is given to him.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III, meanwhile, said he will send the bill abolishing the Road Board to Malacañang, letting President Duterte decide on the matter.

The Senate had adopted the House version of the bill in full, but cannot transmit the bill to the President for his signature because Arroyo has yet to sign it.

“It emanated from the House, so they have to transmit it,” Sotto said.

Both the Senate and the House approved the bill abolishing the Road Board, with the Senate adopting the House version in September, but Andaya said the House rescinded the approval of the measure.

But Sotto said as far as the Senate is concerned, the abolition of the Road Board was a done deal.

“We adopted the House version, it’s as good as a bill that is supposed to be transmitted to the President already,” he said.

Last week, the Senate also adopted a resolution against the release of road tax collections.

Collected from motorists, the MVUC is supposed to be managed by the Road Board and to be used exclusively for road maintenance and improvement of road drainage, installation of traffic lights and road safety devices, and air pollution control.

READ: 2019 budget laden with ‘pork’—Ping

The fund, however, has been tainted by corruption in the past years, prompting calls for its abolition.

Sotto said that if the House insists that the Road Board remains, someone should bring the matter to the court.

The Senate leader said a bill abolishing the Road Board can be filed again in the next Congress as the term of those opposing it will have already ended.

Senator Francis Escudero said a case of mandamus could be filed to compel the House to sign the enrolled bill.

Senator JV Ejercito agreed and noted that the road tax was for years a source of corruption.

Senator Panfilo Lacson said he would insist on what was already agreed upon.

The Senate on Sept. 12, 2018 adopted the House version to dispense with the bicameral conference. Later that day, the House rescinded its approval on third reading of its own version.

In 2017, the President called on Congress to abolish the Road Board and transfer its functions to the appropriate department. Both houses have responded by immediately passing their own versions of the bill.

   READ: Senate keen on probe of ‘parked’ pork  

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