House Majority Leader and Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. on Sunday welcomed President Rodrigo Duterte’s statement for Congress to work on the genuine abolition of the Road Board.
Andaya said the President in his visit to Bicol region stressed the need to use proceeds of the road user’s tax or the motor vehicle user’s charge (MVUC) in helping calamity victims.
“With the President’s latest instructions, the bill being pushed by the Senate and the previous House leadership on road board abolition is dead in the water. He wants total road board abolition, not fake abolition. The utilization of MVUC in the bill is complete opposite of what the President wants,” he said.
The version which was approved but was rescinded by the House of Representatives was a fake bill on Road Board abolition.
According to Andaya, the House of Representatives shall “designate the members of our contingent to the bicameral conference committee on our first session day next year, on Jan. 14” to finish the job of abolishing the Road Board.
“This makes the proposed bicameral conference committee on the bill more urgent and indispensable,” said Andaya.
“In the bicam, we have to ensure that all proceeds from the MVUC form part of the general fund. We want to strip MVUC collections of its status as a hidden off-budget item that will be spent by one person in an un-transparent way,” he said.
“The proceeds need to be included as a line-item fund in the annual budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways in the General Appropriations Act. This way, the real and full funding level of the DPWH is reflected clearly, unlike today when MVUC spending is segregated and treated as a non-national budget expenditure,” he added.
He said the House leadership is batting for a 100-percent abolition of the Road Board.
“We do not want its powers to be merely transferred to three secretaries who would in effect be ‘three road kings’ who could spend the MVUC at will,” he noted.