House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. said Thursday that Road Board funds would now be transferred to the General Fund under the General Appropriations Act after both Houses of Congress agreed on what to do with the agency and its multi-billion peso funds.
Andaya said the special account provided in the GAA would be deleted and would no longer be considered a separate account.
It would now be part of the national budget or the General Fund to be used for the GAA.
“This way, we will see in the line items where the funds from the Road Users’ Tax will be used. It will no longer be a separate fund that only members of the road board see,” Andaya said.
The P50-billion fund would be put in the budget and the projects where it would be used would be enumerated, Andaya said.
He said under the Constitution, the House would have the first crack and the Senate would wait for the House version.
“We have a common document with the Senate. The contents are similar. We will have our own little tweaks on the matter,” said Andaya on the question of what working documents would be used.
He said it would not go back to the House Committee on Ways and Means, as it would be the Plenary that will take over the bill.
“The Plenary is supreme over any other committee,” he said.
Andaya said they will hold the bicameral meeting on Monday as requested by the Senate and make sure the bill is specific to what President Rodrigo Duterte has instructed.
READ: Senate rejects bicam on Road Board
The House on Wednesday approved on second reading a bill abolishing the Road Board.
Before its approval, Andaya and Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri and Senator Ralph Recto agreed on what to do with the Road Board and its funds in a meeting early this week.
The bill, Andaya said, was a tax measure and the creation of the Road Board was merely incidental to the establishment of the Motor Vehicles Users Charge being collected by the Land Transportation Office.
“In this situation, we will still work overtime and have the tax measure, as amended, sent to the Senate by Monday,” Andaya said.
“We will do our work today and the plenary will take cognizance of that particular measure. We will introduce amendments, recognize it as a tax measure and put in the proper amendment for the Senate to tackle on Monday.”
