Officials of the Philippine Estate Authority Tollway Corporation (PEATC) yesterday said the operations of Manila-Cavite Expressway (Cavitex) is the "biggest tollway robbery in history."

At a press conference Friday in Quezon City, immediately after the DAILY TRIBUNE published the support of Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) to PEATC, Atty. Ariel Inton, the tollway corporation spokesperson said the Cavitex Infrastructure Corp. (CIC), a Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation (MPTC) subsidiary is diverting the issue by raising 'technicalities' issues designed to cover the real issue of converting the 90-10 sharing of toll fees in their favor, instead of 60-40 ratio in favor of goverment.

"It is a misleading statement that the goverment own 10 percent only (of the entire Cavitex)," Inton said referring also to CIC/MPTC offer to "buy-out" the goverment share of P2.5 billion.

"They have already earned over P22 billion in the past. Is this not the biggest tollway robbery in our history?" Inton said.

PEATC officer-in-charge Dioscoro Esteban Jr. on the other end said it would be illogical for the government to sell out its stake in CAVITEX for P2.5 billion as the toll road is estimated to be earning over P2 billion a year.

According to Inton, PEATC is seeking a writ of mandamus from the Court of Appeals to regain control of the project, its spokesperson and the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA), PEATC’s parent agency, expressed full support for the legal action.

Inton said they raised concerns about the current revenue-sharing agreement with 90-10 sharing of toll fees which the PEATC argued the agreement heavily favors CIC and leads to significant potential revenue loss for the government.

With this, Inton said that the government loses an estimated P1 billion annually due to the current 90-10 revenue-sharing structure.

He added that the 60-40 revenue sharing scheme should have taken effect much earlier when Phase 1 of the CAVITEX was already completed.

“Further delay will only add to the government’s losses, conservatively estimated at one billion pesos annually,” Inton said. “These recovered funds could significantly benefit reforms and projects under the Marcos administration.”

Esteban, meanwhile also said when he came over, MPTC has not even implemented the seven wage increase for tollway personnel promoting PEA Employees Union to support them by taking back the full control and operations of Cavitex.

"I believed that all workers should receive the rightful wages. For a decade they have been receiving low salary. Pinabayaan ng CIC sa di pag-sunod sa korte at gobyerno," Esteban said.

The PRA, in a separate statement, said it supports PEATC's action to file a case for mandamus against CIC.

The PRA added that it was open to a "peaceful yet just and pro-people settlement" of the issue as it reiterated its support for PEATC’s efforts to recover what it believes is rightfully owed to the Filipino people.