Senate to start hearings on Road Board abolition

The Senate committee on public works will start hearings today on proposals to abolish the Road Board, which congressional leaders described as a fund-rich but corruption-ridden agency.

The panel, chaired by Sen. Manny Pacquiao, will conduct the public hearing with the committee on public services, chaired by Sen. Grace Poe.

The two committees will deliberate on proposals from Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III and Senators Joseph Victor Ejercito and Juan Miguel Zubiri to abolish the Road Board whose funds come from the Motor Vehicle User’s Charge (MVUC) collected from vehicles registered annually.

“If the agency is doing nothing or duplicating the functions of the Department of Public Works and Highways, I think its existence must be reviewed,” Pacquiao said yesterday.

He said the committees would look into reports of corruption in the agency.

Ejercito said funds for the Road Board, estimated at over P90 billion as of last year, do not pass the scrutiny of lawmakers as they are not included in the annual national budget crafted by Congress.

Funds from the MVUC are supposed to be used for road and transportation projects under Republic Act 8794, which created the Road Board.

“As lawmakers, we go around the country and we get appeals from the people for their needs. Sometimes as simple as lighting for dark roads and we relay those requests to the Road Board,” Ejercito said.

The senator said he made a request for the lighting of a stretch of road in Cagayan months ago but it was ignored. He suggested the agency’s functions be transferred to the DPWH, and a portion of the funds will be earmarked for anti-air pollution projects as vehicles are among the top sources of pollution.

Pimentel in his bill seeking the body’s abolition cited reports from the Commission on Audit on the “illegal utilization” of the MVUC by the Road Board.

He said from 2004 to 2008, P515.5 million was used for the board’s salaries, allowances, and maintenance and other operating expenses.

In 2011, P62.52 million earmarked for road maintenance and repair was used for engineering and administrative expenses, he said.

“Obviously, the Road Board is just another layer of bureaucracy, which became an avenue for graft and corruption,” Pimentel said in his bill.