Bicam meet eyed to tackle Road Board

Hoping to push through with a bicameral conference committee to craft a “better” bill to abolish the Road Board, Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri on Thursday appealed to Minority Leader Franklin Drilon to keep an open mind on the matter.

Zubiri also plans to call an all-member caucus on Jan. 14 to discuss his proposal for a bicameral meeting.

No conflicting provisions

Drilon earlier said there was no need for both houses of Congress to meet in conference as there were no conflicting provisions in the bill to iron out.

The Senate has adopted the House bill.

But Zubiri said on Thursday that the bicameral conference committee was intended to appease the new House of Representatives leadership that sought changes to the bill.

The measure was crafted during the term of former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.

The new leadership, headed by Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, rescinded the House approval of the bill, but later relented after President Duterte insisted on doing away with the corruption-ridden Road Board.

“My suggestion was to appease the side of the House leadership that there should be corrections to the Alvarez-approved version of the Road Board abolition,” Zubiri told reporters.

He said the Senate adopted the House bill when it got wind of the plan of the House not to push through with the abolition.

“But we really wanted to meet in bicam as the Senate approved a stricter version,” he added.

The bicameral conference committee would “approve a better version wherein the [motor vehicle user’s charge] funds are properly directed back to the national treasury,” he said.

He said he would ask Drilon and Sen. Panfilo Lacson to be part of the Senate panel to the bicameral conference “to make sure that the best measure can be put into place where the funds would never be corrupted or wasted.”