Revilla, headed to face-to-face meeting, fumes after road ordeal he blames on RFIDs

MANILA, Philippines—Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., who lives in Cavite province, expressed disgust over being stuck on the road for hours on the Coastal Road tollway, blaming his ordeal on what he said was the never-ending problem involving radio frequency identification (RFID) stickers.

In a statement released by his office on Wednesday (Dec. 2), Revilla said he left his house in Bacoor City around 1 p.m. to be physically present at a meeting in Metro Manila but his travel, normally taking only minutes, took hours because of problems with Easytrip, the RFID sticker of Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) which operates the Coastal Road tollway.

MPTC and San Miguel Corp., which operates other toll roads, had been ordered by the Department of Transportation to shift to full RFID payments on their toll roads to prevent physical contact between toll collectors and motorists in a bid to stop transmission of SARS Cov2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The two toll road operators had originally been given until October to implement a cashless payment system but the deadline was moved to January 2021 amid a deluge of complaints over agonizingly long queues for RFID sticker installation.

Revilla said the installation of RFID was taking too long and accused MPTC of incompetence.

“Even if it was slow before going through the tollway at least it was always moving,” Revilla said in the statement.

“Unlike now that it takes too long to pass through because the RFID stickers that they issued are unable to be read and are processed one by one by toll way staff,” he said. Miggy Dumlao, trainee

TSB

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