Road Board abolition bill sent to Palace

THE Congress-approved final version of the bill abolishing the graft-ridden Road Board was officially transmitted to the Palace on Wednesday and is expected to be signed soon into law by President Duterte, the Senate leadership confirmed.

Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III said the Road Board, tainted with allegations of misusing multimillion-peso funds collected from annual Motor Vehicles Users Charge (MVUC) registration fees, was deemed abolished long ago.

“...As far as we are concerned, the Road Board was abolished when the Senate adopted the House-approved version of the bill abolishing the Board. We also passed our own Senate version at the start, but we subsequently recalled out version to avoid having to go through bicameral proceedings, since we saw that the House version was good. So to skip the bicameral, we adopted their version en toto,” Sotto said on Wednesday, in a mix of English and Filipino. “In other words, it should be deemed an enrolled copy, submitted already to the President for signature.”

Sotto said the agency is “good as abolished because its funding won’t be released anymore,” and it was good, he added, that the Palace made it clear on Tuesday that the President was ready to sign the abolition as soon as it reaches his desk.

He, however, did not rule out the possibility that the issue could be raised in court, but hinted it could be an exercise in futility.

“If they insist on it, perhaps somebody should bring it to the proper venue, if courts are needed to resolve it, let it be,” Sotto said.

Butch Fernandez

PRESIDENT Duterte said on Tuesday he never threatened Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle. “They say I shouldn’t threaten Bishop Tagle. When have I ever done that? But when they hold their Mass for Trillanes, they say, ‘Ah mamatay sana si Duterte sa sakit’ [Oh, we hope Duterte dies from his illness],” the President said in a speech on Tuesday during the Barangay Summit on Good Governance Region 11.

Duterte was reacting to Cardinal Tagle’s statement that people in high office should not use power to bully others.

The President said this a day after Malacañang said Duterte does not feel that he was the one being alluded to in Tagle’s remarks.

In his homily on Sunday at Manila Cathedral as he led the celebration of traditional dawn masses leading to Christmas Day, Tagle said: “Do not bully anyone. Do not use your power to disrespect others. Do not use your power to coerce others.”

“Just because you are in power, you already have the right to trample upon others. In truth, the bully, he who uses power to belittle his fellow man, he is the one who is most afraid and insecure,” Tagle added.

The President has repeatedly unleashed tirades against the Catholic Church and the priests.

“Nobody there goes to church anymore. That’s why…And the priest who…They always criticize me for being a bully. But what about the American priest who was assigned in Biliran? For how many years did he molest children?” he also said on Tuesday, referring to one priest whom he said was a “pedophile.”

Earlier this month, the President urged the public to eliminate “useless” Catholic bishops” for “all they do is criticize.”

However, Malacañang has insisted this would not incite more killings as the President’s statement should not be taken literally.

Presidential Spokesman and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador S. Panelo has also said the President does not expect an apology from the bishops who are criticizing his administration’s war on drugs.