QUEZON CITY — Despite Monday’s transport strike, the Public Transport Modernization Program (PTMP) will continue as planned, Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Jaime Bautista announced.
During the Palace briefing on Sept. 23, Bautista said the PTMP is non-negotiable, even as he noted the calls of militant transport groups to scrap it.
The DOTr “cannot turn its backs on the majority of transport groups who support and subscribe to the PTMP,” he reiterated.
He also announced the deferment to 2025 of the imposition of fines on motorists along expressways with no radio frequency identification device (RFID) tags or insufficient funds on their accounts.
According to the DOTr, the postponement will give operators more time to address faulty RFIDs and other issues in their operations.
“We are extending to January next year the implementation of the penalties, not the whole program of cashless expressways under the Joint Memorandum Circular 2024-001,” Bautista said.
“We are collating inputs from recent consultation meetings with various tollway stakeholders, including information and profiles of violators. This information will be used to make any amendments to the joint memorandum circular,” he added.
Bautista affirmed the government’s commitment to pursuing “convenient and traffic-less travels at all expressways using cashless toll exits.”
The imposition of fines was supposed to take effect starting Sept. 1. It was later moved to Oct. 1 to give time for tollway operators and concerned agencies to fine-tune their operations and conduct a public information campaign.
According to the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB), around 100,000 vehicles, or 4.8 percent of motorists, still have no RFIDs. (PIA DMD)
