“Spying” on motorists: Two contending views on RFID

Even as a militant lawmaker yesterday stepped up her opposition to the radio frequency identification (RFID) project of the Land Transportation Office, six groups of transport workers asked the Supreme Court to dismiss a petition questioning the project’s legality.

“The anomalous LTO-Stradcom RFID project must be junked. This scheme is both an absurd and burdensome requirement at the expense of ordinary motorists,” Gabriela party-list Rep. Liza Maza said, referring to a joint venture project of the LTO and Stradcom Corp., that firm that now serves as lynchpin of LTO’s information system.

Stradcom presently interconnects about 250 LTO offices nationwide, automates and integrates its core business processes, such as issuance of driver’s license and motor vehicle registration, and enables online and real time processing of transactions.

Maza described the LTO’s RFID project as “apparently another profiteering scheme.”

She said that since the dawn of 2010, LTO had begun collecting P350 from the motorists for the additional fee on every motor vehicle that is registered this year.

“All the more it becomes shady since it is implemented just months before the 2010 elections,” she added.

But the transport workers’ groups — Federation of Jeepney Operators and Drivers Association of the Philippines (FEJODAP), Alliance of Transport Operators and Drivers Association of the Philippines (ALTODAP), Land Transportation Organization of the Philippines (LTOP), NTU-Transporter, Pasang-Masda Nationwide Inc., and Alliance of Concerned Transport Orgizations (ACTO) — saw the project in different light, despite the fact that it would be burdensome to operators of public utility vehicles.

In a motion submitted to the high tribunal, the transport groups said the project would would greatly benefit the public transport sector. “Oppositors-Intervenors are so situated in these proceedings that a resolution of this Honorable Court dismissing the petition will directly and immediately benefit them, while a resolution granting this petition will adversely affect them by failing to reap the benefits of the program,” the groups said in their seven-page motion.

One transport group, the Pinag-isang Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Opereytors Nationwide (Piston), is steadfast in its opposition to the RFID project, invoking its ill effects to the motorists’ right to privacy. It also claimed the RFID was illegal as it violated Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act requiring all government procurements to be done through competitive public bidding.

Maza and some colleagues in the militant Left have asked the Supreme Court to declare the project null and void as it was unconstitutional and sought a temporary restraining order that would stop the LTO from implementing it.

Maza also criticized the Arroyo administration for neglecting the sentiments of the transport sector against the RFID scheme despite the already worsening conditions brought about by unabated increases in the price of oil and other commodities.

“The constitutionality of the implementation of the RFID tags or spy chips is still under question. Aside from the burden passed on to motorists, the fear that the RFID scheme will be used to intrude the privacy of individuals hangs about,” Maza stressed.

Maza has filed House Resolution 1429 last year directing the House Committees on Transportation and Information and Communications Technology
to investigate the impending implementation of the RFID technology san wider public consultation and public advisory and which allegedly underwent shady bidding process.

The RFID project requires the installation in all vehicles stickers containing a microchip that stores vehicle information. It imposes a one-time fee of P350 on the owners of some 4,760,593 vehicles in the country, which means P1.6 billion in revenues.

The RFID tag, which is intended to last for 10 years, will be procured from Stradcom Corp.

The six transport workers groups led by Fejodap claimed they were supportive of the RFID because it would diminish, and eventually eradicate, the operation of colorum or out-of-line public utility vehicles, a position earlier raised by LTO officials.

They stressed that the operation of colorum vehicles affected the daily income of legitimate drivers with franchise, since these illegal vehicles were also plying on their designated routes.

Furthermore, parroting the line taken by LTO and Stradcom, the transport workers’ groups claimed that the RFID program could also eradicate “mulcting” by corrupt law and traffick enforcers who have been victimizing drivers of PUVs notably jeepney drivers.

“Oppositiors-Intervenors, in behalf of its members, respectfully pray that they be permitted to intervene in the instant case on the ground that they are directly and actually affected by the benefits of the implementation of the RFID Tag program, giving them legal interest in the subject matter under litigation,” they said. –Charlie Manalo and Benjamin Pulta, Daily Tribune