Recto rebuffs Roxas: Prov’l taxpayers not subsidizing LRT

Sen. Ralph Recto on Friday rebuffed Transportation Secretary Mar Roxas who had said that a fare increase was in order for Metro Manila’s mass rail transit system to, among other things, stop provincial taxpayers from having to subsidize a train system that did not benefit them.

Recto, chair of the Senate ways and means committee, explained that “not one” taxpayer from the provinces contributed to the subsidy for the Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Metro Rail Transit (MRT) systems.

Roxas had said that the government—and ultimately taxpayers—was subsidizing fares to the tune of around P40 per passenger, or P7 billion a year.

“No one in Batanes, Batangas, Capiz, Tarlac and even Tawi-Tawi is subsidizing riders in Metro Manila,” Recto said in a statement.

“In fact, it’s Metro Manila that is subsidizing the P39.4-billion CCT (conditional cash transfer) program that would benefit most of the provinces,” he said, referring to the Aquino administration’s massive dole program.

Recto urged the government to delay any fare increase, given the relatively high inflation rate and slow economic growth in the last quarter. The laggard economy was blamed on the administration’s apparently slow budget spending.

“We are squeezing the people in Metro Manila (dry)—the middle class, particularly the professionals, office workers and students,” he said.

“I’m not against raising fares but there should be an improvement first in the service like additional rolling stocks or coaches. Caving in to a fare increase now would be tantamount to rewarding inefficiency,” he said.

Recto said the LRT and MRT fare subsidies were sourced mainly from taxes collected in Metro Manila, not the provinces.

In 2010 alone, he said, taxes collected in the cities of Quezon, Makati and Caloocan amounted to P281.8 billion of the total collection of P337 billion from the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s 19 regions.

Recto said Quezon City’s P75.8-billion collection easily dwarfed the total P56.2 billion collected from Bicol to Tawi-Tawi.

The 80-strong League of Provinces of the Philippines (LPP), meanwhile, threw its support behind the proposal to remove the subsidy on MRT and LRT fares.

LPP president and Mindoro Oriental Gov. Alfonso Umali said making the riding public in Metro Manila pay a larger share of the cost of operating the three commuter lines would benefit local government units in the provinces.

“It’s about high time the national government took cognizance of the plight of our countrymen outside Metro Manila,” said Umali.

Bohol Gov. Edgar Chatto also backed the proposed fare hike. “The government coughed up more than P70 billion in the past 10 years to subsidize Metro Manila train passengers. I think that is more than enough,” he said.

Davao del Norte Gov. Rodolfo del Rosario concurred: “We don’t even have an MRT and LRT in Mindanao, yet we have to shoulder the burden of the commuters in Metro Manila. I don’t think that’s fair.”