CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) on Thursday stopped the collection of service fees on an access road inside Hacienda Luisita that connects to the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx).
The TRB reached the decision in a special board meeting on Thursday afternoon, said Julius Corpuz, TRB spokesman.
The cease and desist order was addressed to “all entities whose names appear on tickets issued to motorists and to companies known to have built the San Miguel access road or owned or maintained it to make sure it gets to proper recipients,” said Corpuz.
Motorists passing through the road to reach the SCTEx from the MacArthur Highway in Tarlac City have complained about the collection of fees imposed starting May 17. Cars are charged P20 while drivers of vans and small delivery trucks pay P50 for using the road. Buses, trucks and other heavy vehicles are charged P100.
“Passthru” tickets turned in by motorists to the Philippine Daily Inquirer bore the acronyms “JCSI-BICSI” and “SCI-MAC.”
But Antonio Ligon, lawyer of Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI), clarified that the firm was not collecting service fees on the road.
“HLI is not the one in charge of collection of fees,” Ligon told the INQUIRER on Thursday after arriving from the United States.
When asked, Ligon, however, could not say, which firm has been collecting road maintenance fees from motorists using the 7.5-km San Miguel access road.
Ligon said the HLI could not be collecting fees on that road owned by the Tarlac Development Corp. (TDC).
“It is being maintained by [JCSI], which is represented by a separate counsel on toll matters,” he said.
The HLI has “not entered into any contract as far as toll collection is concerned,” Ligon said, citing information obtained from the HLI corporate secretary.
HLI, he said, built the road’s 2.7-km extension as “payment for quarry fees.”
Corpuz said the “JCSI-BICSI” stood for Jose Cojuangco & Sons Inc.-Brown International Corporate Services Inc. –- indicating that the Cojuangco family has a hand in the toll collection.
“A check with the [Securities and Exchange Commission] showed that BICSI is doing services for JCSI,” Corpuz said.
BICSI has a branch at the Hacienda Luisita, according to Corpuz, but he did not say what kind of service the company has been doing for the JCSI.
Research on SCI-MAC yielded nothing, Corpuz said.
Asked on the names of companies collecting the toll on the San Miguel road, Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr., one of HLI’s owners, replied by text message: “Brown International Corporate Services Inc.”
He did not reply when asked who contracted BICSI to do the task or how was the company related to any of the firms run by Cojuangcos.
Ligon said he could not answer the query on BICSI because he was only authorized to speak for the company on agrarian reform-related issues.
Cojuangco, in an interview, said the road was classified private and the “service fees” were meant for “road maintenance.”
The Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), owner of the SCTEx, told the TRB in a meeting on Tuesday that the road should be “open to the public for free.”
This was in consideration of the construction of the Luisita interchange on that part of the estate to link the Luisita Industrial Park to the Clark and Subic Freeports in Central Luzon.
Cojuangco, an uncle of President Benigno Aquino III, failed to attend the Tuesday meeting called by TRB due to a prior commitment.
Arnel Casanova, BCDA president and chief executive officer, said the agency respected the TRB’s decision in stopping the collection of fees on the road.
“[BCDA] wished that the issue be resolved respectful of all parties’ rights and for the interest of the public in general. We have high respect to the Cojuangcos and have faith in their commitment to serve the greater good,” said Casanova.
He said a letter by Cojuangco did not use the letterhead of the HLI or mention that he was representing HLI in the TRB meeting on Tuesday.
“We have yet to hear from HLI if the company is represented by Mr. Cojuangco. It is not even clear if it is indeed HLI, which is collecting toll. There is no clear indication that HLI is the one doing it,” Casanova said.
The issue of who was actually collecting the toll on the San Miguel access road would be discussed in another TRB meeting, Corpuz said.
Internet-generated data show that JCSI is one of the affiliates of Jose Cojuangco and Sons, a holding company. Its affiliates are involved in agro-industrial business. These are HLI, TDC, Central Azucarera de Tarlac, Luisita Realty Corp., Luisita Golf and Country Club Inc., Tarlac Distillery Inc., Jose Cojuangco and Sons Inc., and Luisita Marketing Corp.
TDC owns 67 percent of HLI shares. At least 33 percent of shares are held by farm workers under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program’s stock distribution option (SDO), which the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council canceled in 2005. The case, which includes the CARP coverage of the 6,000-hectare sugar estate, is pending in the Supreme Court.
A financial report has shown that President Aquino, a member of the Cojuangco clan through his late mother, former President Corazon Aquino, owns .0088 percent of shares in the TDC, a financial report showed.