Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Thursday proposed to use the P46-billion road users’ tax in road clearing and improvements.
In a statement, Recto said the national government should have “equity” in the road clearing operations it had mandated local governments to undertake.
“Its participation should go beyond issuing orders and deadlines, but must also include contributing to the tools and resources local governments need to rid thoroughfares of obstructions,” Recto said.
“Once roads are cleared of encroachments, the hardest part is to keep them that way”•and to ensure that some form of national government-local government partnership is needed,” he said.
Recto said one funding source that can augment local efforts are the billions in unspent Motor Vehicle User’s Charge collections, which are car registration fees paid at the Land Transportation Office.
Unspent MVUC collections stood at P46.25 billion as of December 2018. For 2019, government projects to collect P13.9 billion.
While the use of the MVUC has been modified by a new law signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on April 8, 2019, it can still be used to complement road clearing operations, Recto said.
He was referring to Republic Act 11239, which abolished the Road Board and earmarked all MVUC collections “solely for the construction, upgrading, repair, and rehabilitation of roads, bridges, and road drainage” that will be specified in the national budget.
Under these terms of use, he said if the local government conducted the cleaning, the Department of Public Works and Highways should follow to repair road drainage, sidewalks. It should also do the asphalting of affected roads.
Recto said the MVUC fund would have been the ideal source for the purchase of road clearing equipment like tow trucks and emergency response vehicles to traffic jam-causing accidents, but “these expenditures are no longer in the menu of the new law amending the use of MVUC.”
“But what national government can do is let MVUC fund some DPWH projects and use the so-called ‘savings’ for programs and projects that will aid local governments in keeping roads safe and clear of blockages,” he said.
“That. is just like internal calculation. It’s just like Offsetting. If P5 billion worth of road construction projects were funded by MVUC, then apply P5 billion to other projects which can help in the jobs of local government, “ he said.
He cited the P1 billion Performance Challenge Fund, an item in the budget of the Department of Interior and Local Government, which he said can be increased to reward local governments who excel in road safety and decongestion work.
Recto said projects to maximize road space were some of the plowbacks vehicle owners expect for the registration fees they pay.
