'Road Board violated law that created it'

MANILA, Philippines - Agusan del Sur Rep. Rodolfo Plaza accused the controversial Road Board yesterday of violating the very law that created it and imposed the so-called motor vehicle user’s charge (MVUC) or road tax.

He said the board, formerly headed by resigned Public Works secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., disregarded the formula for the equitable distribution of tens of billions in MVUC collections among congressional districts throughout the country.

“The law provides for a formula but they did not follow it,” he said.

Plaza said under the law, the funds should be equitably distributed among districts depending on the number of motor vehicles since it is motor vehicle owners who pay the road tax.

He added that theoretically, the district with the most number of motor vehicle owners should get the biggest share of MVUC money.

However, he pointed out that many districts did not get Road Board funds and some got more than what they were entitled to under the law.

Congressmen have learned that in Isabela, for instance, the second, third and fourth legislative districts received more than P700 million in Road Board money in less than two years – between early 2007 up to the middle of 2008.

The biggest beneficiary was the fourth district with P375.1-million worth of projects, followed by the third district with P248.6 million and the second with P94.8 million.

During the same period, the second district of Bataan was the site of MVUC-funded projects worth P366.2 million. The first district received P57.6 million.

The projects, worth more than P1.5 billion, were mostly for road “guardrails” and “pavement markings” undertaken by only one contractor, Meditech Trade and Development Corp., owned by a certain John Tansipek of San Juan, Metro Manila.

Its contracts were split into less than P19 million each and were finished in three to four months.

For instance, on March 18, 2008, the Road Board gave Meditech three contracts for a uniform P19.137 million each for the installation of road guardrails in Isabela’s third district, for a total of P57.4 million.

The projects were finished in less than four months on June 26.

While these were ongoing, Meditech was given two more contracts worth P19.134 million each on April 4, and another two for P19.134 million and P19.218 million one week later on April 11, for a total of P76.6 million.

The projects were finished again in less than four months on July 13 and 20, 2008.

The same pattern of splitting of contracts took place in the other congressional districts.

There were reports that Meditech also cornered Road Board contracts worth nearly P2 billion in Nueva Ecija and Laguna.

The Senate economic affairs committee, chaired by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, has recommended the filing of plunder charges against Ebdane, and Rodolfo “Dodie” Puno, former Road Board executive director, and his successor, Danilo Valero.