The roadworthiness certificate of the provincial bus that plunged into a ravine in Sablan, Benguet last August 18 and claimed the lives of 49 passengers was a fake.

This admission by Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) Assistant Secretary Virginia P. Torres, concurrent Land Transportation Office (LTO) chief, during a Senate committee hearing set off angry reactions from senators headed by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile on why there are so many traffic accidents in the country.

Enrile stressed that government should adopt a “carrot and stick’’ approach to the unending litany of bus accidents throughout the archipelago by removing the permit of bus companies involved in accents. To just fine erring bus companies whose buses later kill people is not the right approach, he added.

Torres told the Senate public services committee chaired by Sen. Ramon “Bong’’ Revilla Jr. that her office has already submitted its report on the fake roadworthiness certificate of the bus operated by Eso-Nice Bus company for appropriate action.

“We found out that the certificate of roadworthiness he (the bus operator) presented to the office and to the Land Transportation Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB) was fake,’’ Torres told Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III.

Sotto, former head of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB), said the LTO and the LTFRB ‘’should go after the neck of that guy who gave that certificate and the operator bragged that he has a certificate of roadworthiness.’’