MANILA, Philippines — North Luzon Expressway Corp. has just 24 hours to reimburse all the motorists who were "accidentally charged" with toll fees starting from the period their business permit in the city was suspended or the "toll holiday" where it was prohibited from collecting fees.
In a letter published Wednesday evening, Valenzuela City Mayor Rex Gatchalian, who on Monday evening suspended the corporation's business permit within the city, also ordered NLEX Corp. to furnish the city government all data reports of daily collections made from the RFID system.
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Gatchalian in his letter called on the corporation to secure "clear and concrete solutions to various problems being encountered by the public" with regards to its RFID sticker system, whose solutions he said "should have clear and specific deadlines."
READ: Valenzuela suspends NLEX business permit
Earlier Wednesday, the Toll Regulatory Board said that it was willing to impose penalties, or even suspended toll collections, for any continued violation of the implementing rules and regulations on the cashless transactions on expressways on the part of toll concessionaires and collectors.
"I'm not sure if this is a veiled threat but city hall doesn't do well being threatened," Gatchalian also said of the remark of Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. Romulo Quimbo on the possibility of filing of a case over the suspension of the toll operator's business permit.
"We will welcome them filing a case in court. We know we stand on strong legal ground so we are ready to defend our actions. You want to dialogue but you are saying may potential court case. I'm not sure if that is good faith," the city mayor also said.
Traffic woes spawned by RFID implementation come as a result of a prohibition of most cash payments in toll roads to lessen the risk of coronavirus transmission, all part of an ongoing thrust of the department to come up with a seamless toll system where motorists would only have to load only one wallet.
READ: Mayor REX sends his response letter to NLEX stating that the company should establish clear, concrete, permanent long-term solutions to the problems encountered by the riding public; action plan must have specific deadlines and measurable performance indexes of success. pic.twitter.com/m1kbDCojV8
— valenzuelacity (@valenzuelacity) December 9, 2020
QC backs suspension of NLEX business permit
Citing traffic congestion on the Quezon City side of the NLEX Mindanao Smart Connect tollway, Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte in a statement sent to reporters earlier Wednesday threw support behind Gatchalian’s decision to suspend the corporation's business permit "until the glitches identified with its cashless transaction are ironed out."
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“I fully support cashless transactions, especially as this is part of the new normal. But if implementation is flawed, then the purpose of this technology, which is to promote convenience and speed up the flow of vehicular traffic, will not be achieved,” Belmonte said, adding that traffic along Mindanao Avenue has only worsened in recent weeks.
The city government added that traffic enforcers have been deployed at the intersection of the NLEX Smart Connect tollway and Mindanao Avenue for several months "just to ease traffic due to this problem."
Belmonte also reiterated her appeal to transportation officials to re-open two major interchanges along EDSA and several U-turn slots, which she said would address traffic congestion resulting from the closure of U-turn slots to give way to the EDSA bus carousel.
“We hope the national government will consider some of our recommendations. On our part, Quezon City commits to deploy manpower to manage the interchanges and U-turn slots to ensure the unhampered movement of the carousel buses,” she said.
— Franco Luna
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Disclosure: Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte is a shareholder of Philstar Global Corp., which operates digital news outlet Philstar.com. This article was produced following editorial guidelines.