Palace: SLEx, NLEx toll hikes here to stay for now

(Updated 8:07 p.m.) Despite growing public concern, the toll fee increases in the South Luzon Expressway (SLEx) and the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) will continue as the government’s economic team did not arrive at a course of action during their meeting with President Benigno Aquino III on Wednesday. However, the approved total increase in SLEx toll fees was lower than the original amount applied for by the operator, South Luzon Tollways Corp. (SLTC), according to Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning (PCDSP) Secretary Ricky Carandang. Carandang said the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) reviewed the toll increase formula as submitted by SLTC and found that some costs should not be passed on to the public. "Upon review of some of those costs, some of them were not validated and therefore the increase is significantly less than what was originally asked for," Carandang said in a press briefing after the meeting of the Cabinet's economic cluster. Carandang said the SLTC proposal lists the costs as about P13 billion, but only around P10 billion was approved. The Palace official also reiterated that the increase in the SLEx toll fees will be gradual. SLEx toll fees increased by more than 200 percent last January 1, but the SLTC said these were already "discounted" by 11.4 percent. The discount will go down to 7 percent in February, then to 4 percent in March, before the full new rate is implemented in April. Carandang said the proposed 11-percent increase in NLEx toll fees was not touched because most of the complaints were on the SLEx toll fee hike. Higher toll rates also took effect on Saturday at the 85-km North Luzon Expressway (NLEx), the 94.5-km Subic-Clark Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx), and the 8.5-km Subic Freeport Expressway (SFEx). Bus companies operating in Metro Manila and South Luzon provinces are also pushing for 30- to 50-centavo per kilometer hike in fares, citing the 250-percent increase in toll fees as well as the steady climb in oil prices. Hikes' impact on economy Carandang said the Palace hopes motorists will accept the toll hike in the long run when they see that the funds will also be used to improve the country's roads. "These increases are going to help fund some of the improvements in our roadways. We believe that in the end the consumers will be willing to bear some of these increases if they see improvement in the services and the quality of the roads," he said. Carandang allayed fears that the toll hike will significantly raise prices of other commodities, saying the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said the national inflation rate next year will likely be at a "very manageable" 3.4 percent despite the toll hikes. "We believe that the toll increases in themselves will not have a significant impact on the macroeconomy," he said. Even though the total SLEx toll fee hike has been reduced and the implementation is going to be gradual, Aquino nevertheless instructed his economic team to find more ways to mitigate the impact of the hike without breaking the government’s obligations to investors who funded the construction of the expressway, said the Palace official. "The president has also asked the economic team to find out what other measures might be taken within the context of honoring our contracts which could be applied in the coming weeks and months," he said. "These are contractual obligations of the Philippine government and it would not be wise over the long term for us not to abide by these contractual obligations," Carandang said. Proposed measures 'not feasible' The measures discussed in the three-hour meeting of the Cabinet economic cluster were found to be not feasible at the moment. One of the options had been for the government to subsidize what has to be paid to investors, but this was deemed to be "very expensive." "Right now the sense of the economic team is that a sustained subsidy over the long run is going to cost a lot of money," said Carandang. "You have to prioritize. We have scarce resources. Do we subsidize Metro Manila's riding public or do we find the money and spend it on other priority projects that can benefit the whole country?" he added. Another option, to use the Philippine National Construction Corporation (PNCC)'s share in toll revenues and just give it to the operator, was also thumbed down because it wasn't legally feasible as of the moment. "The PNCC gets a share of the toll revenues as a partner of the operator. Their revenues go directly to the national treasury. Pag pumasok na yung pera sa treasury hindi mo basta bastang pwedeng kunin yan without an appropriation [If that money is already with the treasury, you can’t just use that without an appropriation]," Carandang said “Pinag-aralan namin [We tried to see] if there were ways and… legally it doesn't look like there's a way right now that you can just take that money and apply it," Carandang said. The Palace official said the Cabinet's economic cluster may meet with the President next week to discuss other possible measures to lessen the impact of the toll hike on the public. ‘Audit first before toll hike okay’ Despite Malacañang’s efforts to minimize the impact of the toll hikes, Senate Minority Floor Leader Alan Peter Cayetano insisted that the government should first conduct a full audit of tollway operations before allowing toll rate hikes. "I'd like to see an audit first before we give in to their [tollway operators] requests for toll increases," Cayetano said during a press briefing on Wednesday, adding that such an audit will show how much toll operators invested in the expressways and how much they really need to get back from the tollway users. "Parang hindi ako makapaniwala na tama yung mga computation at ganun kalaki ang kailangan para mabalik yung kanilang investment [I can't believe that their computation is right and that they need that much to get back what they invested]," he said. Cayetano also urged Malacañang to create an inter-agency task force that would help protect consumer rights. "I believe that the Filipinos are the most abused consumers in the world," he said. He said this task force can help protect consumers from abuse by companies through their policies on product expiration, product quality, and price increase, among others.—JV, GMANews.TV