The chairman of the House Committee on Metro Manila Development on Tuesday denounced the “undue advantage” of toll operators in the implementation of a cashless payment system on toll expressways.
During a hearing, Manila 1st District Rep. Manuel Luis T. Lopez, the panel chairman, said the amount collected in November 2020 alone for either NLEX or SLEX Corporations could not be below a billion pesos by way of minimum load upon acquiring the radio frequency identification (RFID).
The minimum load requirement for one RFID ranges from P200 to P400. “This amount takes into consideration only the minimum payments made by owners of the 3.2 million vehicles which have been reported to have acquired an RFID. We can just imagine how much more is to be made by the tollway operators when this cashless system is fully implemented,” said Lopez.
“And in all probability no one at any point in time just maintains the minimum balance. I see vehicles in front of me that have balances of tens of thousands of pesos. They would be holding billions of pesos in advance and, considering that no discount is given for any prepaid amount, they can already use and are being paid even if their services have not been availed of. It appears that there is an undue advantage on toll operators and an obvious disadvantage to vehicle owners with this current cashless system.”
Citing records as as of November 25, 2020, Lopez said about 3.2 million vehicles have acquired RFID tags while there are still a lot of vehicles without said tags as Metro Manila alone has around 6.2 million registered vehicles.
“We need to dig deep into whether or not this cashless system is truly what we need now. We cannot afford to continue such a rushed, costly and anti-poor scheme without concrete basis. This enormous benefit to the toll operators must be passed on to our motorists and riding public by way of discounts or toll rate reduction,” he said.
“More than just the prevention of the spread of Covid-19, we have to assess, among others, if there is truly a need to make all tollway transactions cashless, this will encourage more motor motorists to use toll roads, [and] if the penalties are necessary and justifiable.”
Last August 13, 2020, the DOTr issued Department Order 2020-012, requiring Cashless or Contactless Transactions for All Vehicles Travelling on Toll Expressways primarily to avoid the spread of Covid-19.
The two RFIDs being used are the Autosweep tag by San Miguel Corp. for the Skyway, South Luzon Expressway, STAR Tollway, Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway, Ninoy Aquino International Airport Expressway and the Muntinlupa-Cavite Expressway; and the Easytrip tag—issued by the Metro Pacific Tollways Corp.—for use in the North Luzon Expressway, Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway, Cavite Expressway, C5 Southlink and Cavite-Laguna Expressway.