HOUSE Ways and Means Chair Joey Sarte Salceda (Albay, 2nd district) sought clarification from the Department of Transportation (DOTr) today about issued Memorandum Circular (MC) 2020-036, issued by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), prohibiting tricycles, pedicabs and motorized pedicabs from operating on national highways.
“Since when did the DILG have powers over national highways? Even the most liberal reading of the Local Government Code would also reserve its powers to the LGUs, not to the DILG. The DILG has obviously exceeded its powers here,” Salceda said.
Salceda also read into the record the DOTr’s mandate, particularly Title XV, Section 1 of the Administrative Code, which states that the DOTr “shall be the primary policy, planning, programming, coordinating, implementing, regulating and administrative entity of the Executive Branch of the government in the promotion, development and regulation of dependable and coordinated networks of transportation.”
“Where is the DILG there?” Salceda said.
Salceda raised the question during today’s Committee on Ways and Means hearing on Salceda’s House Bill 10038, which imposes the road user’s tax on three-wheeled non-conventional vehicles.
Salceda says that “the imposition of the road user’s tax on these vehicles also means they can use the roads.”
Salceda adds that the DILG’s MC “not only created confusion especially in provinces where there is very little end-to-end transport options by tricycles.” It also “has been used as an excuse to ban non-conventional vehicles who are perfectly capable of plying national roads from using the same roads, despite currently being charged the MVUC.”
“We generally eschew taxation without representation as much as we avoid charging for a service without ability to use the service. So, the DILG MC is not only a stretch of legal space. It also disenfranchises a significant share of both users and taxpaying vehicle owners.”
“We reiterate our call to the DILG to rescind this policy from the past administration and limit itself to its mandate of supervision of LGUs, not imposition of rules or usurpation of their powers or that of other agencies.”
