Ate Glo must account for road users’ tax
DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco
The Philippine Star
Close to P6 billion a year is collected from vehicle owners in the form of a road users’ tax. The amount is included in the registration fees for renewal or first registration. This is a special purpose tax that should fund, well… projects to benefit road users. Thus far, my dear Ate Glo has not explained or given us a report on how the tax is being used.
If the tax is supposed to benefit road users who pay the tax, it should be used to reduce the headaches road users have when they use the roads. For one thing, it should be used to alleviate if not solve our horrible traffic jam problems. It should be used for driver education so that there is more discipline and courtesy on the roads, thereby enhancing personal safety for travelers. It should be used to build more roads.
Now and then we hear reports that the road users’ tax is being used for political purposes. For instance, newspaper reports have it that Ate Glo dipped into this fund to finance her emergency job creation project during the election campaign and even now. All those people pretending to clean roads wearing Ate Glo t-shirts are apparently being paid out of this fund.
So what else is new? What would anyone expect from the likes of Ate Glo? Well, if this is true, this should be another ground for impeachment, as far as I am concerned.
This diversion of funds for purposes other than what it is supposed to have been earmarked for by Congress under the law that allows its collection is nothing less than malversation. Sure, we want clean roads too, but in our scheme of priorities, we want better flowing traffic first, traffic education and physical improvements such as flyovers.
Take that horrendous traffic jam that clogs C-5 from Julia Vargas in Pasig all the way to the Kalayaan intersection that’s there for the whole day now. It used to be a problem only during rush hours but now, it’s the whole day, thanks to the heavy volume of traffic and the inadequate traffic light system of managing it at the Kalayaan corner.
What we need at C-5 corner Kalayaan is an overpass. I once heard Mayor Eusebio of Pasig tell MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando, at the EDSA Plaza Tuesday Club, that his city is willing to contribute to the building of an overpass there even if the corner is not in his municipality, because the negative effects reaches Pasig as well. Makati Mayor Jojo Binay should be able to contribute a larger share too because it is in his city.
And since C-5 is a national road, DPWH should spend the bulk of building that infrastructure. The National Government should use the road users’ tax for the purpose, if counterpart funds to a foreign grant are called for. Yet, NEDA just announced they are canceling a number of projects funded by Japan’s Bank for International Cooperation or JBIC. Guess what? The Kalayaan-C5 overpass is one of them.
NEDA did not give any reason for the cancellation beyond saying they are cleaning up their inventory of pending projects approved for funding by JBIC but remains undone by DPWH. Most likely, the culprit is lack of counterpart funds and the delay of over seven years is costing us money in terms of commitment fees. I think this is criminal inefficiency of a National Government agency. Given our precarious fiscal condition, it should be an impeachable offense.
C-5 is now a major artery that connects the rest of Metro Manila to the industrial hub of Calabarzon. Keeping it clogged the whole day, every business day is no way to encourage business and economic growth. NEDA must reconsider canceling that JBIC facility and instead, Ate Glo must mobilize her non-functioning DPWH officials to fast track an overpass project there.
And I find nothing wrong with using most of the road users’ tax money to fund projects in Metro Manila. I am told that over 40 percent of registered vehicles are in Mega Manila and we just have less than 20 percent of the total usable road network here. In other words, not only do we need more road infrastructure in this area, we deserve it if only because we paid the taxes for it.
But if the DPWH Secretary is busy doing undercover police work to keep Ate Glo in office (like babysitting Garci, according to rumors), what time would he have thinking of the job he actually took an oath to do?
Ate Glo must account for the road users’ tax. No ifs and buts about that. Maybe too, if the opposition took the cudgels for us on very specific and important day to day and easily verifiable matters like this, their cause would get more sympathy from harassed Metro Manilans. I think the misuse of this road users’ tax is a bigger scandal than jueteng payola because money that was directly taken from our wallets are involved. No matter how immoral jueteng might be, at least betting comes from one’s free will.
Come to think of it, that shameful scandal of NEDA having to cancel Japanese foreign aid because of bureaucratic failure should be investigated too by the Ombudsman. That smells of corruption and inefficiency, both under the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.
The Philippine Star
Close to P6 billion a year is collected from vehicle owners in the form of a road users’ tax. The amount is included in the registration fees for renewal or first registration. This is a special purpose tax that should fund, well… projects to benefit road users. Thus far, my dear Ate Glo has not explained or given us a report on how the tax is being used.
If the tax is supposed to benefit road users who pay the tax, it should be used to reduce the headaches road users have when they use the roads. For one thing, it should be used to alleviate if not solve our horrible traffic jam problems. It should be used for driver education so that there is more discipline and courtesy on the roads, thereby enhancing personal safety for travelers. It should be used to build more roads.
Now and then we hear reports that the road users’ tax is being used for political purposes. For instance, newspaper reports have it that Ate Glo dipped into this fund to finance her emergency job creation project during the election campaign and even now. All those people pretending to clean roads wearing Ate Glo t-shirts are apparently being paid out of this fund.
So what else is new? What would anyone expect from the likes of Ate Glo? Well, if this is true, this should be another ground for impeachment, as far as I am concerned.
This diversion of funds for purposes other than what it is supposed to have been earmarked for by Congress under the law that allows its collection is nothing less than malversation. Sure, we want clean roads too, but in our scheme of priorities, we want better flowing traffic first, traffic education and physical improvements such as flyovers.
Take that horrendous traffic jam that clogs C-5 from Julia Vargas in Pasig all the way to the Kalayaan intersection that’s there for the whole day now. It used to be a problem only during rush hours but now, it’s the whole day, thanks to the heavy volume of traffic and the inadequate traffic light system of managing it at the Kalayaan corner.
What we need at C-5 corner Kalayaan is an overpass. I once heard Mayor Eusebio of Pasig tell MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando, at the EDSA Plaza Tuesday Club, that his city is willing to contribute to the building of an overpass there even if the corner is not in his municipality, because the negative effects reaches Pasig as well. Makati Mayor Jojo Binay should be able to contribute a larger share too because it is in his city.
And since C-5 is a national road, DPWH should spend the bulk of building that infrastructure. The National Government should use the road users’ tax for the purpose, if counterpart funds to a foreign grant are called for. Yet, NEDA just announced they are canceling a number of projects funded by Japan’s Bank for International Cooperation or JBIC. Guess what? The Kalayaan-C5 overpass is one of them.
NEDA did not give any reason for the cancellation beyond saying they are cleaning up their inventory of pending projects approved for funding by JBIC but remains undone by DPWH. Most likely, the culprit is lack of counterpart funds and the delay of over seven years is costing us money in terms of commitment fees. I think this is criminal inefficiency of a National Government agency. Given our precarious fiscal condition, it should be an impeachable offense.
C-5 is now a major artery that connects the rest of Metro Manila to the industrial hub of Calabarzon. Keeping it clogged the whole day, every business day is no way to encourage business and economic growth. NEDA must reconsider canceling that JBIC facility and instead, Ate Glo must mobilize her non-functioning DPWH officials to fast track an overpass project there.
And I find nothing wrong with using most of the road users’ tax money to fund projects in Metro Manila. I am told that over 40 percent of registered vehicles are in Mega Manila and we just have less than 20 percent of the total usable road network here. In other words, not only do we need more road infrastructure in this area, we deserve it if only because we paid the taxes for it.
But if the DPWH Secretary is busy doing undercover police work to keep Ate Glo in office (like babysitting Garci, according to rumors), what time would he have thinking of the job he actually took an oath to do?
Ate Glo must account for the road users’ tax. No ifs and buts about that. Maybe too, if the opposition took the cudgels for us on very specific and important day to day and easily verifiable matters like this, their cause would get more sympathy from harassed Metro Manilans. I think the misuse of this road users’ tax is a bigger scandal than jueteng payola because money that was directly taken from our wallets are involved. No matter how immoral jueteng might be, at least betting comes from one’s free will.
Come to think of it, that shameful scandal of NEDA having to cancel Japanese foreign aid because of bureaucratic failure should be investigated too by the Ombudsman. That smells of corruption and inefficiency, both under the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.
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