Bicam ready to abolish Road Board — Andaya

MANILA, Philippines — The contingent of the House of Representatives in the bicameral conference committee will be ready to sit down with senators, when Congress resumes session on Jan. 14, to discuss President Duterte’s directive to abolish the Road Board.  

“In concurrence with the President’s wishes, the House will designate the members of our contingent to the bicameral conference committee on our first session day this year,” House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. said yesterday. 

Andaya issued the statement after Duterte visited last week the submerged municipalities in the Bicol region where more than 100 people died in the onslaught of Tropical Depression Usman last December.

“The President has made it clear on how he wants the Road Board abolition done. During his visit to calamity areas in Bicol, he spelled out the need to use proceeds of the road user’s tax or the motor vehicle user’s charge (MVUC) in helping calamity victims,” the Camarines Sur representative added.

For him, that would mean that the bill “being pushed by the Senate and the previous House leadership (under ousted speaker Pantaleon Alvarez from 2016 to mid-2018) on the road board abolition is dead in the water.”  

“He wants total road board abolition, not fake abolition. The utilization of MVUC is the complete opposite of what the President wants. This makes the proposed bicameral conference committee on the bill more urgent and indispensable,” Andaya said.

“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 untransparent way,” he added. 

He maintained that the House leadership under Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo do not want the Road Board’s “powers to be merely transferred to the three secretaries who will, in effect, be Three Road Kings who can spend the MVUC at will,” referring to the secretaries of the public works and highways, transportation and the environment and natural resources.

Andaya said Congress wants “itemized spending the people can see” as he vowed to “heed the President’s guidance by crafting a version that will truly abolish the board and move the spending of the MVUC collection from darkness into light.”