MANILA, Philippines — As its first official act after the opening of the Second Regular session of the 19th Congress on Monday, the House committee on ways and means yesterday approved a bill updating the rates of motor vehicle user’s charges (MVUC).
With no objection from the stakeholders who participated in yesterday’s hearing, panel chief and Albay Rep. Joey Salceda declared House Bill (HB) 376 approved by the committee.
The bill aims to raise more funds for public transport modernization, while reducing rates for vehicles for-hire and exempting motorcycles and tricycles from the charge.
Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez said the MVUC measure is one of the six bills the chamber hopes to pass by December.
In his second State of the Nation Address on Monday, President Marcos identified the MVUC measure as priority legislation.
According to Salceda, HB 376 seeks to amend Republic Act No. 8794 or the MVUC enacted more than two decades ago, and impose a Motor Vehicle Road User’s Tax or MVRUT instead.
“The bill is based on the MVRUT bill passed on third and final reading in the 18th Congress, after thorough deliberation and consultation with stakeholders and industry experts by our committee,” he said.
The measure is also part of the priorities of the Development Budget Coordination Committee, which estimated revenues of P151 billion from 2024 to 2027 from the measure.
Finance Undersecretary Cielo Magno told the committee at the hearing that the DOF “fully supports” the measure.
“We believe that this simplified version of the MUVC bill would be very supportive of the needs of the Filipino people for seamless mobility that would provide safe reliable road systems,” she said.
Bureau of Internal Revenue lawyer Anne Lorainen Garcia-Marquez also expressed the BIR’s support for the measure that she stressed would “help the government generate revenues to defray the necessary expenses such as road development for the betterment of the country.”
But PISTON chair Modesto Floranda has expressed concern that additional taxes would further burden the the public transport sector.
“So if imposing additional taxes could not be avoided, we hope this will be imposed on the big businessmen and rich individuals, not us,” he maintained.
Discount
Salceda explained that public utility vehicles (PUVs) would actually enjoy 50 percent discount under the measure.
Aside from this, part of the MVUC collections would be earmarked for PUV operators to help them modernize their units.
According to the lawmaker, the President has the authority to adjust the MVUC rates annually as stipulated in RA 8794.
But since the enactment of the law in 2014, MVUC rates had been adjusted only once – not even for inflation – in the past 19 years before the enactment of the law in 2014.
“So, actually, it takes courage for Congress to undertake this, but it’s Congress, as representatives of the people, who would be in a better position to decide these things,” Salceda added.
The measure aims to raise some P274.45 billion over the next five years. It also seeks to earmark 45 percent of incremental revenues for the PUV modernization program, and five percent for road crash prevention programs.
“As envisioned, the earmarking for PUV modernization will be enough for equity subsidy of P500,000 per unit of PUV,” he maintained.
The DOF estimates that the implementation of the MVUC reform will have minimal impact on public transport fares in 2024.
The proposal would also result in minimal impact on inflation at 0.068 percentage points next year.
Meanwhile, Romualdez said seven of the 17 measures cited as priority by Marcos in his SONA had already hurdled the chamber.
“I am extremely confident that the House would again rise up to the occasion and accept the challenge from our President: to pass the 17 priority measures needed to sustain our economic recovery and improve the living condition of our people,” he said.
Ten pieces of legislation are being readied for approval by October, among them the four taken up in the SONA labeled as “priority” – Anti-Agricultural Smuggling, Amendments to the Cooperative Code, Tatak Pinoy and Blue Economy.
Expected for approval by December aside from the MVUC are Military and Uniformed Personnel Pension, Revised Procurement Law, New Government Auditing Code, Rationalization of Mining Fiscal Regime and National Water Act.
The list of 17 SONA priority measures, according to Speaker, does not include the proposed 2024 national budget of P5.7 trillion, which the Executive Department will submit to Congress sometime next month.
“Of course, the most important bill that we need to discuss and approve the soonest time possible is the 2024 General Appropriations Bill based on the National Expenditure Program prepared by the Executive Department,” Romualdez pointed out.