Newly appointed Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon suspended the scheduled re-implementation of cashless or contactless toll collection on major expressways next month.

In a press briefing in Malacanang on Friday, Dizon announced that he ordered the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) to suspend the scheduled reimplementation of cashless toll collection beginning March 15, noting the need the to further improve the system which he described as anti-poor and can make the lives of motorist more difficult.

"I understand the need to regulate, but the need to regulate should not result in making the lives of people difficult. This cashless (system), I think will give difficulties to our people. Maybe a time when the system is perfect will come but right now, I don’t believe in it so I asked them to stop it," he said.

"I’ve already sent word to the toll operators that we’re not going cashless on March 15, and we’re not going cashless for the forseeable future," he added.

Dizon, 50, replaced Jaime Bautista, who resigned as transportation secretary last week.

Dizon said the transportation department will work closely with the Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation (MPTC) and San Miguel Corp. (SMC) to ensure that the system is efficient before it will be reimplemented.

"I want to, first, work with the two toll operators - MPTC and San Miguel ? and let's take a look at the system. Is there a way to make it more efficient? If all the barriers are working? Are all the RFID (radio frequency identification) readable? Because if we still have this kind of problem and the system is not yet perfect, maybe it is not yet the right time for us to use cashless (transactions)," he said.

He also explained that "having a cashless system is not pro-poor; it is anti-poor" because not all of the motorist always have enough money to load their cards.

"How about our citizens who don't have enough budget? They cannot load (their card) or what if due to their tiredness they forgot to load, and their balance is negative or zero, if it is cashless what will they do, it is another problem for the people," said Dizon.

Last Saturday, the TRB announced the reimplementation of the cashless toll collection starting March 15. This initiative was part of the board's solution to ease the congestion at the toll plazas.

It can be recalled the cashless toll collection was previously suspended due to several operations issues after it was initially implemented in 2020. Robina Asido/DMS