The Philippine Lower House Committee on Transportation (COTr) has identified its priority bills as the 17th Congress enters its second session. These include amendment to the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) Law and merger of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) and Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).
Other COTr priority measures are the creation of a new railways authority; establishment of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB); and the Sustainable Transport Act.
The amendment of the law creating CAAP will separate the authority’s regulator and operator functions, COTr chairman and Catanduanes representative Cesar Sarmiento said in his State of the Committee Address delivered on July 26.
In the current and previous Congresses, bills have been filed aiming to break up CAAP’s mandates and limit it to only a regulatory agency, even as a new airport authority will be created to handle airport development and operation.
Sarmiento has refiled his bill, now House Bill (HB) No. 2041, which aims to amend the CAAP Law, or Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9497, and strengthen the agency’s regulatory functions. No counterpart bill, however, has been filed in the Senate. Senator Grace Poe filed Senate Bill (SB) No. 1442, but it aims not to split CAAP’s functions but strengthen them.
The National Logistics Master Plan crafted by the Department of Trade and Industry and the private sector-led Philippine Multimodal Transportation and Logistics Roadmap also strive to address the conflicting mandates of CAAP.
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Amending R.A. 9497 is also recommended by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Export Development Council, and Joint Foreign Chambers.
Transport Secretary Arthur Tugade had likewise earlier expressed his plan to review CAAP’s mandate, noting that “I do not believe in having a regulatory body (that) at the same time (is also) operating.”
In response to the downgrade of the country’s aviation status after inspections by foreign organizations, the government enacted R.A. 9497 in March 2008 to create CAAP—an “independent regulatory body” possessing corporate attributes with quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative powers, and attached to the DOTr for policy coordination. The new law abolished the Air Transportation Office, but retained its commercial and investigatory functions in CAAP.
Meanwhile, several bills have been filed seeking the creation of an NTSB, which will serve as an independent agency that will investigate aviation and surface transportation disasters.
The bill to create a sustainable transportation network in the country through rationalization and providing the necessary framework and standards has also been filed.
House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez earlier proposed merging LTO and LTFRB into a single Land Transportation Authority. He also suggested the creation of a Philippine Railways Authority to “set uniform standards and fares for all railways operating here in the Philippines.”
Sarmiento, meanwhile, said he believes everyone, particularly the Department of Transportation and public transportation operators, is “included in the goal of improving the overall state of Philippine transportation.”
The lawmaker said he expects everyone “to be dependable and to level up, to make their efforts count in realizing the change the President has promised.”
Aside from focusing on low-lying fruits, or easily implementable programs that have immediate effect on traffic congestion and transport safety, Sarmiento urged transportation agencies “to get in touch (with) reality.”
“For instance, if we want to improve the state of our public transportation, it is only appropriate that our policymakers also know and experience the kind of public transportation Juan Dela Cruz is experiencing every morning while going to work, every evening as he goes home or during hot and rainy days,” he said.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
