Last week, we shared the news about the full implementation of cashless transactions on our tollways beginning March 15. We’ve also shown our skepticism about this latest pronouncement by the Toll Regulatory Board as this wasn’t the first time the agency made such a declaration—only to take it back before it was even implemented.

That’s why we weren’t surprised when newly appointed Department of Transportation chief Vince Dizon ordered the TRB to suspend its latest directive. According to this report by ABS-CBN News, Dizon described this as “anti-poor” as not all motorists have the financial capability to keep their RFID accounts topped up.

Dizon also added that the cashless system implemented by both tollway operators—Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation and SMC Infrastructure—is riddled with technical issues that should be ironed out first.

NLEX Corporation, MPTC’s subsidiary, invested P1.4 billion to install automatic license-plate recognition (ALPR) cameras at its 315 toll lanes. Furthermore, NLEX will convert the remaining 127 RFID antennas to high-frequency ones increasing the tags’ read range.

Meanwhile, SMC Infrastructure claims that it has installed 522 ALPR cameras at its toll plazas.

These are just some of the measures that the companies are taking to help achieve their goal of 98% readability of RFID tags and speed up detection time down to a second, regardless of the vehicle’s class. Sadly, until such measures are completed, most technical issues will persist, which somehow justifies Dizon’s doubts about the efficiency of cashless systems on our tollways.

While we don’t get the “anti-poor” rhetoric, we agree that the technical issues and the reliability of RFID tag detection should be fixed before shifting to a 100% cashless system. However, we believe this shift is necessary to make tollway use truly convenient.

But what’s bothering (but also not surprising) is the government’s indecision and lack of political will when it comes to unpopular policies such as this one. According to the unified statement of toll operators in the country, 97% of expressway users already have an ETC device or an RFID sticker on their vehicles for toll payments.

Is it fair to suspend the implementation of this system that helps make expressway travel more convenient to appease the outrage of the 3% of users who still haven’t gotten tags for their vehicles? Isn’t this unfair for the majority who did their best to comply with the system because they want a better travel experience?