THE proposed grant of emergency powers to President Duterte to deal with the gargantuan traffic problem in Metro Manila should not just allow the Department of Transportation (DOTr) “to do away with bidding for big-ticket infrastructure projects but enable the agency to do the right things the right way.”
Expressing conditional support for the measure, Liberal Party Rep.Winston Castelo of Quezon City said, “Drastic problems require drastic solutions,” but in granting emergency power to the Executive, Congress should ensure that projects to be implemented are properly identified, and accountability and transparency are not compromised.
“It is important for Congress to examine in detail how the power is to be exercised, what are its limitations, and what measures are adopted to ensure that the projects really address the problem within the time frame needed while making sure that the funds are used properly, and the government and the public are not placed at a disadvantage by private-sector participants,” Castelo pointed out.
The House Committee on Transportation is set to hold another public hearing this week on various bills seeking to grant emergency powers to the Duterte administration.
Officials of the DOTr, led by Secretary Arthur P. Tugade, have yet to fully convince the committee of the need for emergency powers, as they have not presented in detail the coverage of the powers and the plans and projects of the department.
Castelo, one of the coauthors of the bill filed by Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez, said present DOTr officials should avoid the mistakes of their predecessors who were content in “mesmerizing Congress with beautiful PowerPoint presentations,” but did little on the ground to actually deal with the problem.
“In the past Congress, we had been presented with thick folders of plans and projects to supposedly address the traffic mess, but no actions were actually taken by the then-Department of Transportation and Communications. It is not only disappointing. It is frustrating,” Castelo lamented.