TRB: Tread lightly on revocation of gov’t deal with tollway operators

Photo shows heavy traffic at the North Luzon Expressway segment in Valenzuela City. (Photo from Mayor Rex Gatchalian’s Facebook account)

MANILA, Philippines — The possible revocation of concession agreement between toll operators and the government should be carefully studied, the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) said Monday as it vowed to address the glitches in the implementation of the mandatory cashless payments on expressways.

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian earlier warned that toll operators may lose their contract unless they effectively address the heavy traffic caused by the implementation of the Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) program.

“Subalit yan po’y siguro kailangan pag-aralan mabuti, tignan mabuti kung kailangan pa bang umabot sa ganyang decision ang ating pamunuan o kailangan talagang ma-address nang dalian itong mga problema ng RFID implementation nang sa ganon lalo nang mapaganda ang takbo ng daloy sa ating mga expressway,” TRB spokesperson Julius Corpuz said in an interview on Teleradyo.

(But this must be studied carefully, let’s see if it has to reach this far or if we can just address the problems of the RFID implementation promptly to improve the traffic flow in our expressways.)

“Kami po’y ginagawa po natin ang lahat ng ating kakayanan at paraan upang mabigyan ng maayos na serbisyo ang ating mga motorista through our toll operators,” he added.

(We are doing everything that we can to provide good service to our motorists through our toll operators.)

Asked if it is keen on declaring a toll holiday as suggested by Valuenzuela City Mayor Rex Gatchalian, Corpuz said it is an option that is available but there are also other ways to address the heavy traffic along expressways.

“Ang obserbasyon naman po namin, from the past week,  nakita naman po namin na nagkaroon naman na po ng improvement. Subalit hindi naman po kami hihinto dahil alam po namin at nakikita naman at meron po kaming natatanggap na mga reklamo pa,” Corpuz said.

(Our observation from the past week is that there’s an improvement. But we won’t stop because we know and we see that there are  still lot of complaints.)

gsg