Road Board’s days are numbered — house

The Road Board is now on its way to extinction and its days are numbered after the House of Representatives approved on second reading the bill that calls for its abolition.

Camiguin Rep. Xavier Jesus Romualdo, chairman of the House committee on government reorganization, said the Board is just one “congressional recess away from extinction” following the approval of House Bill 7436 late last month.

The priority bill, co-authored and spearheaded by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, seeks to abolish the board, which oversees the funds collected from the Motor Vehicle User’s Charge (MVUC), due to grave allegations of misuse of public funds and of graft and corruption.

Those collected funds are supposed 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 abolition of the Road Board and the amendments to the MVUC Law would ensure the prudent management and efficient utilization of the MVUC. We remove an opaque and intricate layer of the bureaucracy and put the funds directly in the hands of implementing agencies. We clear up who is responsible and accountable for the use of the funds, which would lead to proper and better use of the funds,” Romualdo said.

He also gave assurance that “projects funded out of the MVUC collections, particularly for construction and improvement of local roads, which are badly needed in the countryside, will be distributed equitably throughout the country.”

The measure provides that 80 percent of the Special Local Road Support Fund will be distributed among the DPWH district engineering offices using “equal sharing, population and land area” as basis.

House members are expected to approve HB 7436 on third and final reading when they resume session on May 15.

The Commission on Audit has reported irregularities in the use of the MVUC funds, including unauthorized, unnecessary and irregular expenses; excessive contract costs; delayed and uncompleted projects; and technical deficiencies and defects in projects.

Under the bill, MVUC collections shall be used only for construction, upgrading, repair and rehabilitation of roads, bridges and road drainage; pollution control, including the establishment, improvement of solid waste management programs and facilities; and vehicle pollution control.

The collections shall be apportioned and deposited in four special trust accounts in the National Treasury: 40 percent in the Special National Road Support Fund and another 40 percent in the Special Local Road Support Fund, which shall both be managed by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH); 10 percent in the Special Pollution Control Fund, to be managed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources; and 10 percent in the Special Vehicle Pollution Control Fund, which shall be managed by the Department of Transportation.

In mid-2017, Speaker Alvarez said a pattern of anomalies over the years was evident, noting that COA unearthed signs of illegal utilization of the Road Fund estimated to have amounted to P90.72 billion from 2001 to December 2012.

In 2011, P62.5 million of the Road Fund was used for the Road Board’s engineering and administrative overhead expenses, according to COA. In 2013, COA also uncovered findings of irregularities in the use of more than P1.6 billion of the funds.