Senate, House agree to abolish Road Board in January conference

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri and his House counterpart, Rolando Andaya Jr., on Sunday agreed to speed up the process of abolishing the Road Board by meeting in conference in January.

Zubiri said the two chambers could meet on Jan. 14, when the legislative session resumes, to decide on a uniform version of the bill that would scrap the corruption-riddled agency.

Like coco levy bill

“We did this with the coco levy measure that needed further refinements, so we reconvened the bicam,” he said, referring to the bill establishing a coconut levy fund for farmers.

The House majority bloc on Saturday capitulated to the wishes of President Rodrigo Duterte and the Senate to dissolve the Road Board amid allegations of massive corruption involving the use of the P45-billion road user’s tax controlled by the agency.

“We are positively responding to Senator Zubiri’s call that the Senate and the House meet in conference to hammer out a genuine Road Board abolition bill,” Andaya said on Sunday.

3 Road Board kings

But Andaya claimed that House Bill No. 7436, principally authored by former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, would not actually dismantle the seven-member agency but would only hand over its authority to the “three powerful Road Board kings.”

Andaya was referring to the heads of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Public Works and Highways.