Senate adopts resolution against release of road tax collections

The Senate adopted a resolution Thursday urging the Road Board and the Office of the President not to release any funds collected under the Motor Vehicle Users’ Charge (MVUC).

Minority Leader Franklin Drilon stood up during the plenary deliberations on the budget of the Office of the President to ask Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea to stay a little while and hear the motion of the Senate.

He said the road tax collections should not be released as both the Senate and the House have approved a bill abolishing the Road Board.

“The efforts of this chamber and that of the House of Representatives will show that both chambers passed their respective versions of the bill. Subsequently, each chamber designated their members to the bicam in order to thresh out the disagreeing provisions,” he said.

However, the bicameral conference committee was never convened after the change in the  leadership of the House. In September, Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr., said the chamber was rescinding the approval of the measure.

Drilon said the Senate adopted the House version so a bicam is no longer needed as there are no more disagreeing provisions.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III has already signed the bill but is still pending at the House.

“The refusal of the presiding officer of other chamber should not defeat the decision taken by both chambers as a whole. This Congress is about to end, we, therefore, move that the Senate pass a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate urging the Road Board, through the OP and ES, not to release any fund from the road users tax which constitutes the fund of the Road Board considering that the chamber already passed the bill which abolishes the Road Board,” he said.

During the Questions Hour at the House of Representatives last Tuesday, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno stood firm against the release of funds collected under the MVUC amid the insistence of several leaders of the House.

“We will not release until the Road Board is abolished. . . . That’s the policy of the Palace,” he said.

The MVUC fund currently stands as P45 billion.  Collected from motorists, the fund 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.

The use of funds, however, has been tainted by corruption in the past years, prompting calls for its abolition. —LDF, GMA News