VEHICLE INSPECTIONS HELD BACK, TOO
President Duterte has made the motor vehicle inspection system (MVIS) nonmandatory even as operators of private motor vehicle inspection centers (PMVICs) agreed to “operate at a loss” by lowering their inspection rates and suspending the collection of reinspection fees for a year.
“The MVIS is no longer mandatory, which means there should be no new fees, no additional fees for the registration of vehicles,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. said in a Palace briefing on Thursday.
“What all of us will be paying now if we renew registration is the amount that we used to pay before,” he said.
Lowered fees
In a press briefing also on Thursday, Iñigo Larrazabal, president of the Vehicle Inspection Center Owners Association of the Philippines (VICOAP), announced that they would lower their fees for the 70-part test for light vehicles to just P600, the same rate being charged by private emission testing centers.
For motorcycles and jeepneys, PMVICs would charge P500 and P300, respectively.
The group also decided to suspend the collection of reinspection fees.
“In the same way that we responded to the first call of the government about roadworthiness and made the investment without hesitation, we continue to believe that this is a good and worthy program,” Larrazabal said.
According to VICOAP, the move was in response to the call of the House committee on transportation for them to help out motorists who were struggling financially.
Moral obligation
Earlier this week, the Senate committee on public services recommended that the operations of PMVICs be suspended temporarily due to issues over the privatization of the service.
According to Larrazabal, their work “goes beyond compliance and regulation.”
“Our work in PMVICs goes beyond compliance and regulation. This is about saving lives. No one can mandate us to save other people’s lives; this is our moral obligation to make sure that our vehicles are safe not just for our families, but that we don’t pose a threat to others on the road,” he told reporters.
Cannot wait
The creation of PMVICs was based on Department Order No. 2018-019 issued by the Department of Transportation and Memorandum Circular No. 2018-2158 of the Land Transportation Office.
The memorandum circular authorized PMVICs to charge an inspection fee of P1,800 for motor vehicles weighing 4,500 kilograms or less on top of a P900 reinspection fee, and P600 for motorcycles and tricycles with a P300 reinspection fee.
Leo Olarte, president of the Clean Air Philippines Movement Inc., asked Congress to sponsor a bill that would authorize the government to subsidize PMVIC fees for a temporary period or during the pandemic instead of suspending its implementation.
“Our life-threatening problems on respiratory and cardiovascular diseases due to unabated motor vehicle emissions and also the needless Filipino deaths yearly due to road accidents or crashes and, of course, the equally urgent global problem on climate change cannot wait to be addressed anymore,” he said.
Dozens of former Republican officials, who view the party as unwilling to stand up to former President Donald Trump and his attempts to undermine US democracy, are in talks to form a center-right breakaway party, four people involved in the discussions told Reuters.
The early stage discussions include former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambassadors and Republican strategists.
More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to discuss the breakaway group, which would run on a platform of “principled conservatism,” including adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law—ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump.
Broader spectrum
The plan would be to run candidates in some races but also to endorse center-right candidates in others, be they Republicans, independents or Democrats, the people say.
Evan McMullin, who was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election, said he cohosted the Zoom call with former officials concerned about Trump’s grip on Republicans and the nativist turn the party has taken.
Call participants said they were particularly dismayed by the fact that more than half of the Republicans in Congress—eight senators and 139 House representatives—voted to block the certification of Biden’s election victory just hours after the Capitol siege.
Breakaway
Most Republican senators have also indicated they will not support the conviction of Trump in this week’s Senate impeachment trial.
“Large portions of the Republican Party are radicalizing and threatening American democracy,” McMullin told Reuters. “The party needs to recommit to truth, reason and founding ideals or there clearly needs to be something new.”
McMullin said a plurality of those on last week’s Zoom call backed the idea of a breakaway, national third party. Another option under discussion is to form a “faction” that would operate either inside the current Republican Party or outside it.
Names under consideration for a new party include the Integrity Party and the Center Right Party. If it is decided instead to form a faction, one name under discussion is the Center Right Republicans.
Large portions of the Republican Party are radicalizing and threatening American democracy. The party needs to recommit to truth, reason and founding ideals Evan McMullin Chief policy director House Republican Conference