TRANSPORTATION Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya should face the reality that the government really neglected the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3, and “should stop creating smokescreens and address the issue up-front.”
Robert John L. Sobrepeña, who chairs MRT Holdings Inc., told Abaya to stop casting doubts on the Senate report on the state of the railway system that runs along Metro Manila’s main thoroughfare, Epifanio de los Santos Avenue.
Instead, Abaya should address the issues raised by the report with utmost urgency and transparency, and stop wasting time on railroading the private owners and a presidential aspirant, Sobrepeña said.
“I urge our dear secretary to address the issues raised by the Senate report and stop creating smokescreens. He is creating nonissues, and is just trying to do the usual deflect-the-issue-and-diffuse-the-issue method that he always does,” Sobrepeña told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview.
He was referring to Abaya’s pronouncements against Sobrepeña’s credibility as a proponent during two of the five Senate hearings on the MRT issue. The transport chief raised Sobrepeña’s legal cases in the past, including the issues on Camp John Hay and the College Assurance Program.
“Instead of reacting to the points of the Senate committee report, he deflected the issue by raising my name. He was trying to cast doubt on the report by saying that I am not a credible source. There were 50 people all in all called during the five Senate hearings. It just so happens that maybe among the people that were invited, I have the most knowledge on the issue because I built the MRT,” Sobrepeña said.
Sen. Grace Poe-Llamanzares, who is running for president, chairs the subcommittee on the MRT and transport issues. Abaya, on the other hand, is the chief of the Liberal Party.
The subcommittee report noted that there was an apparent mismanagement of the train facility, as it lacks coaches, has deteriorating rails, and is being maintained poorly. The report also questioned deals and contracts that the government entered into during Abaya’s term.
Poe’s subcommittee also recommended the filing of graft charges against top officials of the transport department for striking dubious deals. Abaya and his subordinates were also tagged as “insensitive and callous.”
On top of these issues that Abaya is currently facing, the Alliance for Consumerism and Transparency (Action) called on the Commission on Audit (COA) to suspend the P3.8-billion maintenance contract that the transport agency entered into with Busan Transportation Corp. and its Filipino partners.
“In view of the foregoing, may we request your good office to exercise your principal duty to examine, audit and settle all accounts pertaining to the revenue and receipts of, and expenditures or uses of funds and property owned or held in trust by, or pertaining to, the government, and subsequently, to suspend the implementation of the aforementioned project pending investigation from the Ombudsman,” the group said in a letter to the audit agency dated February 3.
Action Secretary-General Vito Gaspar Enrico C. Silo said the agency violated the government’s procurement law, which mandates the conduct of public bidding, when it awarded the P3.8-billion contract to the Busan-led consortium through an emergency negotiated procurement method.
He noted that the transport department also “added scopes of work in the emergency negotiated procurement, particularly the general overhaul of the 43 trains and the total replacement of the signaling systems when the two components were not included in two failed public biddings earlier conducted by the said agency.
The inclusion of the additional scopes necessitated the increase of the appropriated budget from P2.25 billion to P2.38 billion. It then ballooned to P4.25 billion due to the added scope of work not included in the failed bids.
To recall, the agency launched the bidding for the contract in early September 2014, but no private company wanted to take the risk of maintaining a system so degraded, it has been tagged by railway experts as a “danger” to the riding public.
In the hope that companies would be enticed to vie for the much-needed project, the department decided to sweeten the terms of the deal. But, despite the relaxing of rules and the improvement in cost, railway-upkeep services companies still decided to evade a “potential risk.”
The risk, industry observers said, is obvious: the train system itself is already dilapidated. Hence, “maintaining” it, in the literal sense, would mean risking the lives of daily commuters coming from the northern and southern corridors of Metro Manila.
The Department of Justice opined that the move for an emergency procurement was justifiable. It was also unanimously approved by the Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB).
But for Action, such a move was suspicious.
“This is highly irregular, considering that the maintenance of the signaling system has already been awarded to Bombardier, a highly regarded original-equipment manufacturer. Therefore, the upgrading of the signaling system should have been accomplished, and to enter anew with another maintenance on the entire system is clearly not only anomalous resulting to the dissipation of government funds on the first phase of completed and systematic upgrading of signaling system undertaken by Bombardier, but also highly suspicious,” Silo said.
He also pointed out that the negotiations team of the transport department—led by Undersecretary Rene K. Limcaoco—had only accepted one qualified bid or offer and had disqualified two other bids or offers.
The acceptance of the supposed Busan-led group was done despite information gathered by the negotiations team that Busan lacked the 15-year experience requirement they had set from bidders for the contract, since Busan Transportation Corp. was organized only in 2006.
While Busan gave the excuse that it was a subsidiary of Busan Metro, a Korean government-owned and -controlled corporation organized in 1986, the DOTC did not verify this claim and check if Busan Metro and Busan Transportation have interlocking directors or corporate officers.
A look into the other partners of Busan showed that they have no interest or knowledge in the rail industry whatsoever since Edison Development and Construction Corp. was just into construction; Tramat Mercantile Inc. is into agricultural equipment supply; TMI Corp. into trading; and Castan Corp. into plumbing.
“It is clear, therefore, that the negotiating team hired financially and technically incompetent maintenance-service providers,” Silo said.
The MRT is in a chronic state of decay, with the 16-year-old trains already maxed out of their rated capacities and the rails already experiencing difficulties in handling hundreds of thousands of passengers per day.
Several proposals from the private sector have been submitted before the transport department, but none of them has been responded to with clarity.