(Eagle News)–For Senator Grace Poe, the Road Board should first be “made to account for the billions of funds it utilized” from the motor vehicle users’ charge before it is abolished.
“Ours is a government of accountability. And the car owners who contributed to the MVUC should be given their due course,” she said.
According to Poe, the National Treasury should also “be apprised of the total funds that would be transmitted to them.”
She said the funds were, after all, the people’s tax “na dapat ibalik sa pamamagitan ng mga magagandang kalsada, pasilidad na maayos sa mga gumagamit ng ating transport system at mga imprastruktura na nakakabuti sa higit na mas marami.”
Poe made clear she was for the abolition of the Road Board, which has been tainted with corruption.
In fact, she said she supported Senate President Tito Sotto’s transmittal of the measure to the President’s office calling for the board’s abolition.
The Palace has said President Rodrigo Duterte would sign the measure as soon as it reaches his office.
The fate of the Road Board came into limbo after the House of Representatives–under its new leaders— rescinded its earlier approval of the House version of the bill calling for the abolition of the board.
This came after the Senate adopted the previous House version calling for the abolition in the first place, doing away with the need for a bicameral conference committee to reconcile the versions of the two houses of Congress.
Senator Franklin Drilon said, however, that the House lost jurisdiction over the measure after the Senate adopted the previous House version of the bill.
