MANILA, Philippines — With the Bayanihan 2 law expiring on Wednesday, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board hopes to use the funds in the 2021 national budget instead to keep its service contracting program going.
Speaking to media at a press briefing Tuesday, Joel Bolano, head of LTFRB Central Office Technical Division, said that for the time being, the service contracting program's free rides given by the transportation department will have to come to a close.
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The Department of Transportation had a P5.58 billion budget in the Bayanihan 2 bill, which expired on Wednesday, June 30.
Under the General Appropriations Act, a total of P3 billion is earmarked for the program — a significantly lower amount compared to its earlier Bayanihan budget, and one the LTFRB said it has already requested.
LTFRB chair Martin Delgra III said that the Department of Budget and Management is still processing the request for the new funds.
Analyst Loremee Perada of the DBM confirmed at an earlier House hearing that the budget department had already received the request on June 17. The DBM may still reject the request, however.
"As to how soon [the program can continue], I wouldn't want to venture a guess, but definitely we're doing everything to start again," Delgra said, asserting that they needed the funds before anything else.
He added that besides the new funding source, "basically nothing is going to change" in the service contracting program.
Payout to continue
Delgra said that the processing of the much-delayed payouts for drivers will continue even after the Bayanihan 2 funds lapse.
"We will honor that, but these will have to undergo a verification process," he said.
Bolano added that service contracts will have to be online to allow the department to check the number of kilometers each driver had run.
In the service contracting program, public utility jeepneys and buses will be paid a subsidy for every kilometer they run on required 18-hour operations daily, among other performance standards specified under these contracts.
Drivers joining the program for the first time were also supposed to receive one-time incentives ranging from P20,000 to P25,000.
The soon-to-be defunct program was supposed to "protect the families of millions of transport workers who are now at the brink of starvation," according to transport groups, but due to the delayed payouts, the effect was largely unfelt on the ground.
Delgra said the LTFRB was still unsure how much of the P5 billion would remain.
"Since we're still doing the payout, that might increase. We will know the numbers by the weekend," he said.
Unused funds
Ahead of the expiration of the funds, transportation officials admitted before a House panel that less than 15% of the funds allocated for the service contracts of public utility vehicles had been used by the Duterte administration.
This, despite the money being disbursed to the department as far back as October 28 of last year. It had been months after the program formally began when the House committee on transportation discovered this in a hearing earlier in June.
Bolano on Tuesday also admitted that only 42,571 drivers had executed complete contracts before June 30. This also ultimately fell short of the board's target of 60,000 drivers served.
He added that "over 70,000" have actually been oriented on the program but did not yet have activated contracts.
Attempts to extend the effectivity of the stimulus bill were pursued in both chambers of Congress but so far not come to fruition, pending the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to pursue a special session.
"We participated in the discussions and supported the move to extend it," LTFRB chair Martin Delgra III said.