Collections from the Manila-Cavite Toll Expressway Project (Cavitex) are required to be shared by the state-run Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) and the Cavitex Infrastructure Corp., a unit of the Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., under a toll operations agreement (TOA).

A CIC official thus disputed the claim of PEA Tollways Corp. (PEATC) spokesman Ariel Inton that control over the management and collection of fees must be handled by PEATC and not a private company.

PEATC has filed a petition with the Court of Appeals for a writ of mandamus to compel the CIC to surrender the entire Cavitex project to the government.

“It should be clear that toll revenues, under the TOA, are owned by both PRA and CIC and the bank account should be in the name of PRA and CIC,” according to an official of the private firm.

Under Clause 15.03 (1) of the TOA, PEATC is designated to collect toll fees, which shall then be distributed to PRA and the former UEM-MARA Philippine Corp. (UMPC), now CIC, in accordance with the sharing arrangement set forth in the joint venture agreement (JVA) and TOA.

“Before the execution of the operations and maintenance (O&M) agreement, all toll revenue collections were deposited in a joint venture account maintained by PEATC, and toll revenue shares of the JV partners were entrusted to their respective bank accounts,” according to the Commission on Audit in a 2022 report on PEATC.

Also, PEATC was solely responsible for the O&M expenses and must account for and eventually recognize them in its books of accounts.

“However, during the effectivity of the O&M in November 2006, all gross collections were directly deposited to the respective bank accounts of the JV partners. The disbursements for O&M are authorized solely by CIC, and PRA does not share in the O&M expenses,” CoA indicated.

Inton claimed, however, that CoA stated in its 2018 annual report that Cavitex should not remain in private hands.

“The arguments they (MCTEP and CIC) are raising against PEATC officer-in-charge (Dioscoro) Esteban are purely personal attacks and are insignificant issues compared to the billions of pesos he is trying to recover for the benefit of the Filipino people that was earned by the government from the tollway fees at Cavitex,” Inton said.

Source of constraints

The CIC official said records will show that it was PRA and PEATC which had “constraints on their bank accounts due to several requirements before they can be opened.”

As of the last coordination meeting, PRA informed CIC that it was resolving the issue of their bank account where the toll revenues could be deposited.

In the meantime, PEATC has visibility on all transactions as regards the collection of toll revenues.

“Inton is ignoring the instructions of PEATC’s parent company, PRA, to periodically renew the service contracts of providers, such as for toll collection, and Inton is feigning ignorance, or may actually be ignorant, of the clear provisions of the PRA-CIC agreement,” the official said.

He added that Inton was citing a 2018 report and not the latest CoA report which recognized the efforts by both PRA and PEATC to discuss the Cavitex issue with CIC.

“CIC had given all of the information requested by PEATC in relation to the CoA matter, but PEATC has deliberately ignored the numerous replies of CIC to PEATC’s demand letters,” the source said.

He said Esteban lied to the CA when he stated under oath that his demand letters went unheeded by CIC.

“In any event, the responsibility to answer the CoA’s concerns rests with PEATC and Esteban and not with a private company like CIC which is outside of CoA’s jurisdiction,” the CIC official explained.

For his part, Esteban even dismissed a key employee in PEATC’s treasury department who could have answered CoA’s concerns. The result of Esteban’s action is PEATC’s continued inability to address the CoA issues.