Taxes paid for road use must end up in projects seen on the road.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto stressed this point following the passage in the Senate of a bill setting a day to remember road crash victims and a bill almost doubling the road users’ tax in the House.

“There is also another thing that government must not forget: The duty to disclose where Motor Vehicle User Charge (MVUC) payments are spent.”

Recto linked the two issues in his vote speech on the bill marking a national day to remember road crash fatalities.

Recto said the MVUC, which owners pay to register their vehicles with the Land Transportation Office, was envisioned as a “user-pay” levy that will be spent to maintain roads and promote road safety.

With road crashes becoming a national epidemic, he said the rising accident toll must be matched with an increase in projects that will promote road safety, “including the deployment of emergency medical units that will rush to accidents.”

“These should be funded by what motorists pay for the privilege to drive their cars on roads. The MVUC is supposed to be plowed back to them, in terms of better and safe roads,” Recto said.

He said Metro Manila, “the country’s biggest carpool”, recorded 1 vehicular accident almost every 5 minutes last year, or a total of 116,906.

These resulted in 17,891 injuries and 383 fatalities. Nationwide, road accidents claim 4 lives a day, based on a 2018 PNP-Highway Patrol Group Report.

One fund which can come to the rescue is “the mothballed” MVUC collections, which had an unspent balance of P46.25 billion as of end 2018, and a projected collection of almost P14 billion this year.

However, the MVUC law – Republic Act 8794 – has been amended, with its “menu” revamped and the multi-agency Road Board governing it abolished.

The Board’s powers have been transferred to the DPWH Secretary who will itemize MVUC-funded expenditures in the General Appropriations Act.

“But when we buried the Road Board in the graveyard of unlamented agencies, we also pulled the plug on the provision earmarking percentage collections for road safety,” he said.

He urged the government to now use part of MVUC collections for projects that will guarantee pedestrian safety near schools.

“Through widened roads, ample sidewalks, elevated walkways, marked pedestrian lanes, we can create a “kid-safe zone” around the schools and colleges where 25 million people, or one-fourth of our population, go to daily,” Recto said.

“We need engineering interventions that will wrap a protective cocoon around where our children spend most of their day,” he said.

While this kind of project is outside the ambit of the amended MVUC law, “the increasing collections should compel government to increase funding for Emergency Medical Services, even modernize trauma units in public hospitals.”

Tomorrow, November 17, is the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.

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