Tolling on tolls

In strict legal meaning, “tolling” is a law doctrine that allows for the pausing or delaying of the running of the period of time set forth by a statute of limitations, such that a lawsuit may potentially be filed even after the statute of limitations has run. Although grounds for tolling the statute of limitations vary by jurisdiction, common grounds include among other things, the parties are engaged in “good-faith” negotiations to resolve a dispute without litigation when the statute of limitations expired.

More or less, this is the same situation between the city government of Valenzuela and the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) Corp. negotiating “in good faith” the troubles arising from the traffic jams caused by the rush to acquire RFID in tollway booths in the city.

The RFID is an acronym for “radio-frequency identification” that refers to a technology in which the digital data encoded in RFID-tagged vehicles are captured by a reader via radio waves. The RFID system is the wireless non-contact use of radio frequency waves to transfer data of motor vehicle owners. Vehicles with RFID tag allows NLEX to uniquely identify each and every vehicle that passes through their tollways and automatically lift the barrier once recognized by the machine reader.

The use of RFID in tollways gained traction with the outbreak of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic last March this year. The Department of Transportations (DOTr) headed by Secretary Arthur Tugade took cognizance of using RFID system for the implementation of contact-less tolls in all tollways as among the anti-COVID measures to help stop the transmission of this deadly contagion. Through the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB), the DOTr Secretary mandated the full implementation by Dec. 1 of this cash-less, contact-less RFID system in all tollways all over the country, the bulk of which are located in Metro Manila.

But even before this deadline and the COVID-19 pandemic for that matter, the RFID system has been in use by many motorists. I had RFID installed in my service vehicle as early as in 2017 to facilitate traveling in tollways long before this COVID-19 menace started wreaking havoc in our way of life.

However, my RFID is for the tollways of the South Luzon Expressways (SLEX) and the Skyway because I live in southern Metro Manila. The SLEX and Skyway operator is a subsidiary of the San Miguel Corp. conglomerate. Like many motorists who want to drive through supposedly traffic-free roads, we have to pay a high price to enjoy this comfort and stress-free travel. We must shell out for tolls in order to enjoy this convenience of traffic-free drive.

This reminded me of the blunt reply of former president Fidel V. Ramos during a press conference at Malacanang. A reporter asked Mr. Ramos about the public complaints over the stiff toll charges at the Skyway which was formerly operated by Citra of Indonesia and was newly opened then to motor vehicles during his term. “If you want to drive through without traffic, you must be ready to pay the price for it,” Mr. Ramos curtly retorted.

In the particular case of the NLEX, traffic jams started building up all over Metro Manila, including Valenzuela City where NLEX booths are located. Typical of Filipino “mañana” habit, or delaying what can be done to later days, laidback motor vehicle owners are all obviously trying to beat the Dec.1 deadline for the installation of RFID. So much so, they all began massing up in NLEX booths. And this began the daily grind at the NLEX tollbooths until it started causing traffic surge.

This prompted Valenzuela City Mayor Rex Gatchalian to suspend toll collections in their city since Dec.8 due to mounting traffic jams that paralyze major road arteries around their city traced mainly at the entry/exit of the tollbooths. Invoking his powers under the Local Government Code, Mayor Gatchalian suspended the toll collections of all NLEX booths under their city jurisdiction until all “violations” of their business permit to the Valenzuela City Hall are rectified by the tollway firm.

In a DzBB interview last Monday after meeting with the tollway firm’s management, Mayor Gatchalian correctly cited the city government coffers also suffer if one of their revenue sources from major business establishments like the NLEX Corp. is penalized with such suspension of their tolls. Gatchalian disclosed he impressed this upon to NLEX Corp. top executives led by its president and general manager Luigi Bautista. During that meeting, the Mayor symbolically wore a red T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Barriers Up.” Since suspended, all barriers of NLEX tollbooths are raised up allowing free entry of all motor vehicles passing through it.

He could not exactly estimate though how much revenue losses the Valenzuela city government has to give up in local taxes after suspending the business permit of the tollway firm. Gatchalian calculated it could run close to the P3 to P4 million reported gross sales of the NLEX Corp. per day. “Umaaray din Valenzuela. But we can recover from faster traffic compensated by faster turnaround by delivery trucks,” the Mayor pointed out.

The Mayor cited with optimism NLEX Corp. committed to upgrade their RFID system. A long-term solution mentioned to him by NLEX is to build a barrier-free tollway using gantry system. As early as in 2015, NLEX looked into this gantry system in Britain. Apparently, however, nothing came out of this study.

“NLEX has good faith in talking to us,” Mayor Gatchalian noted.

The Mayor’s older brother, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian entered into the fray as vice chairman of the Senate committee on public services. While the Mayor and NLEX are tolling on the tolls, the Senate adopted a resolution strongly urging the DOTR and TRB to immediately suspend the implementation of the cashless transaction on all expressways. A total of 12 million registered vehicles in the country, of which 6.1 million are in Metro Manila, Central Luzon, and Calabarzon and three million do not have RFID tags up to now.

Oh well, there go the tolls.