CITY OF MALOLOS—Bulacan Fifth District Rep. Ambrosio C. Cruz Jr. and League of Municipalities of Bulacan (LMP) President, Bocaue Mayor Eduardo Villanueva Jr. including other local chief executives dispelled collection of pass through fees and expressed support to the order of President Marcos Jr. to halt the demand for “pass-through” fees in all national roads and highways to help ease the transport of goods in the country.
Cruz and his daughter, Mayor Agatha Cruz said that Guiguinto does not implement “pass-through” fees and they fully support the President’s order.
“Guiguinto has no pass-through fees and I support the President’s Executive Order No. 41 banning such fees to reduce the cost of transport thereby reducing cost of commodities notably agriculture products,” he told News Core on Sunday.
Mayor Cruz also said that the municipal government of Guiguinto has no existing ordinance to collect pass through fees and that she supports the order of the President.
Executive Order No. 41, signed by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin on Sept. 25 mandates all LGUs to stop collecting such fees to motor vehicles in all national highways and other thoroughfares not funded by the LGUs to improve the transport of goods in the country.
Villanueva said that Bocaue does not collect pass-through fees.
City of Baliwag Mayor Ferdinand Estrella and San Miguel Mayor Roderick Tiongson also said that they do not collect pass through fees in their respective city and municipality.
Mayor Arthur Robes of City of San Jose del Monte said over the weekend that he and concerned heads of the city government will sit down today, Monday to talk about the order of the President for full compliance.
However, he did not elaborate when asked of the year the collection of pass through fees started.
The City of San Jose del Monte is adjacent to Caloocan City, Quezon City and Rodriguez, Rizal. It straddles along Quirino Highway.
Julius Degala, head of the Bulacan Environment and Natural Resources Office (BENRO) of the provincial government said that BENRO does not collect pass-through fees. He said he will meet with the Provincial Legal Office to check if the province implements pass-through ordinance.
Last week, Degala posted on social media the more than P100 million worth of mining and quarry permits, fees and taxes BENRO collected from January to September, the highest collection of the province in 32 years.
BENRO monitors and regulate the quarrying and mining including timber poaching and illegal logging in the mountainous towns of the third and sixth districts, San Miguel, Dona Remedios Trinidad (DRT), San Rafael, San Ildefonso, Angat, Norzagaray and Sta. Maria and the transport of these products.
The other collections of BENRO are sourced from waste management and pollution control.
Under EO 41, all LGU’s must submit to the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) within 30 days the copies of their respective ordinances on the collection of the pass-through fees.
The order also “strongly urged” the suspension of fees “such as, but not limited to, sticker fees, discharging fees, delivery fees, market fees, toll fees, entry fees or mayor’s permit fees that are imposed upon all motor vehicles transporting goods and passing through any local public roads constructed and funded by … local government units (LGUs).”
