Where's our end of the road users' tax?

It’s been three years since Cebu hosted the 12th ASEAN Leaders Summit. By now, we Cebuanos know that those where the best times we’ve ever had in Metro Cebu. All the streets were paved and properly marked and we had those beautiful lighted lampposts that lined up and lit our major thoroughfares from the Marco Polo Hotel, all the way to the Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa. How I miss those days when you drove your car and never experienced a single bump caused by a pothole.

Three years later, those confounded lampposts are no longer lighted; they look old, cheap and decrepit. Driving through any road within the Metro Cebu area teaches the driver to keep his eyes on the road, least he ends up hitting those numerous bone-crunching potholes! What happened to Cebu in just three years? How could we have deteriorated so quickly?

I will never forget a conversation I had with my good friend, Joel Mari Yu about Cebu, that she’s like an unkempt girl, just waiting to be dressed up and given a swift make-over and viola! Cebu become very presentable to the international community that makes us Cebuanos proud. Yet three years down the road, Cebu is back to its old self, unkempt, dirty. To think, everyday we want tourists to come and visit Metro Cebu because tourism brings jobs to our country? But the state of our roads is a shame! 

It is easy to blame all the mayors of Cebu City, Mandaue City, Lapu-Lapu City or Talisay City for this fiasco though I submit that all of them has to accept personal responsibility for keeping the streets clean and pothole free. Perhaps the bottom line is either lack of ingenuity or the usual excuse of lack of funds? This brings me to the editorial of The Philippine Star yesterday entitled, “Missing Billions.” Allow me to reprint an excerpt of this.

“Somewhere in the exchange of accusations between the camps of Sen. Panfilo Lacson and former President Joseph Estrada, there must be some nuggets of truth. And somewhere in the continuing war being waged by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago against Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno, the nation might learn how billions of pesos in taxes are being spent by the Office of the President. Santiago has vowed to look into the Commission on Audit report that the government has failed to account for about P8 billion in road taxes.

The Road Users’ Tax was imposed in 2001. Collected by the Land Transportation Office for every vehicle registered, the tax is administered by the Road Users’ Tax Board, which is directly under the Office of the President. The board is chaired by the Secretary of the Public Works and Highways. Its members are the Secretary of Transportation and Communications plus two nominees representing motorists and transport groups.

From 2001 to 2008, the tax should have amounted to about P42 billion. Santiago said, a “breach” in the budget process and weak congressional oversight have turned the tax into the biggest pork barrel unaccounted for in government… a COA report detailed supposed anomalies in 2007, when the board was headed by Puno’s brother Dodie.”

What we have here is tax money for a specific purpose, allegedly transferred into a Congressional Pork Barrel and thus becomes an unused Skywalk project of a Congressman or woman when all they needed to do was simply fix our potholed roads? Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago is on the warpath on this and certainly, this issue will explode in the face of the Arroyo Administration unless they can come up with the real answers as to what happened to our Road Users’ Tax.

Meanwhile, Cebuanos have to drive in zigzags trying to avoid our potholed streets because the government has no funds to fix our roads. Take the case of the road widening of Escario St. This project is more than a year old and it’s still taking so long because there is no money to pay those landowners who would lose their front yards.

When Mayor Tomas Osmeña first came into office, he immediately implemented the Metro Cebu Development Program I, II and III widening B. Rodriguez, V. Rama Avenue, M.J. Cuenco Ave. and AS Fortuna St. Those projects took some time to finish, but I shudder to think what would Cebu be today without those projects. Yet 20 years down the line, we need another MCDP type of project like the parallel road to Escario St. from Guadalupe to Gorordo Ave. But without funds, we can only dream of these roads.

Meanwhile, Cebu motorists also continue to suffer paying high gasoline prices because the Arroyo Administration has failed to stop oil smuggling in this country. I dare say that it is time for the Arroyo Administration to give Cebu its due; after all, we help bring her to Malacañang and who knows, Cebuano votes might also elect the next President of this land!

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