Senator Grace Poe said on Friday that Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) head Abraham Sales should just resign following the problems caused by the full implementation of the mandatory cashless payments on expressways.

"Talagang sa tingin ko dapat mag-resign na siya, kaysa naman paalisin pa siya diyan. Sa tono ng binigkas ni Secretary Tugade, eh mukhang papunta doon (I really think he should resign from the TRB instead of waiting to be fired. But with the pronouncements of Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, I think the direction is towards that)," Poe, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Public Services, said in an interview with CNN Philippines.

The Senate panel discussed on Thursday the mess with the government's 100-percent cashless toll collection policy using the radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, whose glitches resulted in heavy traffic this month.

Poe found Sales accountable for failing to address the problems with the RFID system, which local government officials, during the hearing, said have existed since 2017. His inaction made him look like a complicit of erring toll operators, the committee chairperson assessed.

"Akalain mo, tatlong taon na nagkakaroon ng problema ang serbisyo ng concessionaire sa NLEX, ni isang penalty o ni isang warning na ipinakita sa secretary, wala siyang ginawa (Come to think of it, there have been problems with the concessionaire of the North Luzon Expressway for three years, but Sales did not act, not even a single penalty, or warning showed to the transportation secretary)," she said.

President Duterte on Wednesday announced that he will replace the officers of the TRB for their incompetence in handling RFID fiasco, saying the regulator should have made sure that there will be no problems with the shift to cashless transactions.

Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, in Wednesday's hearing, admitted that there was failure of leadership on the part of TRB and its implementation of the RFID system, pointing at Sales. He said he scolded TRB officials for not regularly auditing the performance of toll operators.

But Poe said the culpability goes up to the ranks of the Department of Transportation (DOTr), since the TRB is its attached agency, with Tugade as the chairman of its board.

The DOTr chief conceded that he was not informed most of the time about the affairs within the TRB and designated only an undersecretary as his alternate.

"Certainly, the TRB is only part of the picture, but as what we heard in the hearing and this is also the structure, the TRB is under the DOTr, so there are several break downs in the line of responsibility here. And we know that Sec. Tugade, admitted that in the hearing, and we appreciate his candidness, that he also is responsible for this," Poe said.

Poe said a change in leadership would be necessary to implement reforms in managing the country’s tollways, including the shift to a cashless system.