I HAD wanted to write about the “no RFID, no entry / cashless-only entry” policy being pushed by the private tollway operators, the Toll Regulatory Board, and the Department of Transportation. But time and circumstance conspired to prevent me from doing so.
Secretary Vince Dizon’s recent decision to suspend the policy’s implementation opens a window to finally dissect this matter that, to me, goes against the constitution and is fraught with greed.
Never mind that the tollway operators haven’t perfected the cashless collection system yet, which causes delays in entry and exit points. Many times, the tag is either not being read or is being read incorrectly. That had been my experience. Even in the times that I used the cash lanes when the tag was not being read, tolls were still deducted from my account even though I had paid in cash using the cash lane.
But let’s not talk about technology. Let’s talk about the constitutionality of the policy.
I believe this policy is unconstitutional—or at least subject to the test of constitutionality—because it violates the freedom of abode and travel enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the 1987 constitution.
No government agency—and certainly no private company now operating the country’s primary highways—has the power nor the right to restrict citizens’ access to roads built with the taxes they paid or with loans repaid or to be repaid by their taxes, or loans of private operators with sovereign guarantee.
Sovereign guarantee, of course, means guarantee of the people—or the people’s taxes, because while it is the Philippine government that provides the “sovereign guarantee,” the government, as the constitution says, is only a representative of the people in whom sovereignty resides and from whom all power emanates, including the power to execute sovereign guarantee.
So, all these tollways and skyways are public roads. They just happen to be operated by private companies because the government decided to relinquish its duty to oligarchs so they could make mountains of profits at the expense, literally and figuratively, of the public.
Technically, the people own all these roads and skyways.
Thus, to deny them entry without valid ground as required by the constitution would be to violate Section 6 of the Bill of Rights, which states:
“The liberty of abode and of changing the same within the limits prescribed by law shall not be impaired except upon lawful order of the court. Neither shall the right to travel be impaired except in the interest of national security, public safety, or public health, as may be provided by law.”
Access to and use of public roads is a requisite to the right to travel. The constitution says the right to travel shall not (meaning it’s a command, an order) be impaired except under the three circumstances cited above—and there has to be a law.
There is no issue of national security, public safety, or public health that may be invoked to justify denial of expressway access or entry to persons whose vehicles simply do not bear the RFID sticker. There is neither law nor court order that those who want to impose the rule can hold on to.
The justification is just convenience, facilitated by technology. Which the operators can’t even provide because the system sucks. Moreover, the system is not even convenient—much less practical—for those who pass the tollways only a few times a year. If, for example, you live in Cagayan or Isabela or Bicol and happen to drive to Manila only once or twice a year, would it be convenient and practical for you to get an RFID sticker and load it with funds just so you could use the tollways? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to just pass through the cash lane and pay cash? But they want to eliminate the cash lane.
Even in more advanced countries, there are still cash lanes.
Convenience brought about by technology, such as the RFID technology, does not warrant denial of access to public roads—and the NLEX, SCTEX, TPLEX, SLEX, Star Tollway, CAVITEX, MCEX, CALAX, and Skyway all remain public roads despite being operated by private business.
And even if they are classified as “private roads,” they are not private property of the operators that they can control at their whim because they are—as the Supreme Court has time and again ruled “imbued with public interest.”
The Supreme Court must be asked to strike down the no RFID-No Entry Policy for being unconstitutional and for having been formulated with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction or absence thereof.
