Senator Sherwin Gatchalian has renewed his call for the abolition of the Road Board as he revealed previous attempts by road project contractors to induce him into committing corrupt acts while he was still a local government official.
During a recent hearing of the Senate Committee on Public Works, Gatchalian disclosed that several contractors approached him during his tenure as mayor and congressman of Valenzuela City and offered to “facilitate” with the Road Board the funding for repair and maintenance works on the city’s streets.
“The contractors approached me and said: ‘There is money in the Road Board. You only have to give me a signed letter and I will build you a P50-million road.’ Of course, I knew what they meant. If I had availed of the funding, the next step would have been a meeting on how to split the fund,” he said.
“I rejected the offers. I did not avail of the special road funds. I was stunned by their audacity but I was not interested in their offers,” he told representatives of the Road Board who attended the committee hearing.
Gatchalian lamented that “the Road Board has become a venue for graft and corruption of abusive government officials” at the expense of critical road projects that remain unfunded and yet to be constructed.
Aside from corruption issues, Gatchalian also stressed that the Road Board should be abolished because its functions are redundant with that of the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Department of Transportation.
The Road Board is tasked with the management and utilization of the Motor Vehicle User’s Charge, which is imposed on vehicle owners and earmarked solely and used exclusively for the maintenance and repair of local and national roads, pollution control, and safety works.
To remove the redundancy, Gatchalian proposed that the administration of the MVUC should be delegated to the DPWH and DOTr, which are the major implementing agencies for road maintenance projects and safety measures.
The senator has filed Senate Bill No. 986 seeking the abolition of the Road Board and the reassignment of its mandate.