Detained Senator Leila De Lima has called on the Senate to probe the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) for failing to disburse funds to COVID-19 hit public utility drivers (PUV) under the Service Contracting Program.

In filing Senate Resolution NO. 862, De Lima said the Senate should investigate the Commission on Audit’s (COA) report flagging the LTFRB for using only one perceont of the P5.58-billion funds allocated to the SCP for drivers amid the pandemic.

“PUV drivers are among the sectors most severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. On and off restrictions to travel and transportation imposed by the national government to control the spread of the virus have likewise prevented PUV drivers from earning a steady source of income,” De Lima said in her resolution.

“Failure to implement a social assistance program addressed to a particularly vulnerable sector of the society amounts to gross neglect on the part of the government and the implementing agency to the prejudice of the program beneficiaries,” she added.

De Lima noted that the program was supposed to subsidize PUV drivers displaced by the pandemic by allowing them to enter into transport service contracts with the government to help ease the impact of the pandemic.

But last May 5, transport groups urged the LTFRB to improve the implementation of the SCP, lamenting the delayed and inadequate payment problems which worsen the already difficult state of PUV drivers.

The delays happened despite the extension of the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act to June 30 of this year.

But three months after complaints from transport groups, the COA flagged the LTFRB for using only one percent of the ₱5.58 billion funds allocated to the program for drivers amid the COVID-19 pandemic – an amount equivalent to roughly ₱59 million pesos.

De Lima said the timely delivery of the government’s assistance and livelihood programs for the vulnerable sectors becomes all the more essential with the emergence of even deadlier COVID-19 variants coupled with the slow rollout of the government’s vaccination program threatening to lead to further restrictions on transport and mobility.

“The LTFRB failed to fully deliver the Service Contracting Program within its original timeframe. Even with the extension of the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act, they still flopped in fully utilizing their allocated budget for the program,” she lamented.

“These delays raise serious concerns on the capacity of the LTFRB to implement the program in the first place,” she said.