AFTER undergoing an excruciating 11-hour road trip from Manila to Baguio during the Christmas holidays, an upset Senate President Franklin Drilon said he would file a resolution calling for a Senate investigation into the horrible traffic that greeted motorists who drove through three interconnected tollways—North Luzon Expressway (Nlex), Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (Sctex) and Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (Tplex).
“I will call a hearing exclusively for this purpose so that we could come up with a solution regarding this problem…. I can’t understand why the collection of toll fees can’t be integrated, so that only one entity handles the collection. It’s not rocket science.”
Arnel Paciano Casanova, president of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), hastened to console the countless motorist-survivors of the December 26 carmageddon at the Nlex-Sctex-Tplex “parking lot.” He averred that the traffic nightmare will go away soon enough, as the BCDA already approved last November an integration plan that would reduce the number of toll-collection plazas in the three toll roads and thereby speed up vehicular traffic for both northbound and southbound motorists.
But why did the BCDA put this integration plan in the freezer for over five years, considering that it was proposed—according to Manila North Tollways Corp. (MNTC) President Rodrigo Franco—in 2009 yet?
Metro Pacific Tollways Development Corp. submitted an unsolicited offer on September 17, 2009, to manage, operate and maintain Sctex, a key feature of its technical proposal was the operation of Sctex and Nlex as “one integrated and contiguous expressway network.”
This meant reconfiguring certain toll plazas and interchanges to expand plaza capacity.
When MNTC and the BCDA entered into a Business and Operating Agreement (BOA) on July 20, 2011, covering the assignment by the BCDA to MNTC of the concession over the Sctex, this deal was anchored on the former’s payment to the latter of concession fees and its performance of certain or “committed” maintenance works.
As stated in the technical proposal that MNTC had submitted to the BCDA, one of such “committed” maintenance works is the integration of Sctex with Nlex to ensure the “interoperability of the toll collection system” of both expressways.
This will be achieved, said the technical proposal, “by modifying the toll-collection system of Sctex through installation of devices and peripherals, reconfiguration and expansion of toll plazas, introduction of electronic toll system and software modification.”
But even if the BOA was executed in July 2011, the obligation of the BCDA to turn over the management, operation and maintenance of Sctex to MNTC has not become effective due to the pending approval of the Office of the President, one of the conditions precedent for the takeover by MNTC of Sctex, our research showed.
Then, in March 2014, MNTC presented to the BCDA the idea of advancing the implementation of the Nlex-Sctex Integration as a way to ease the mounting traffic congestion in certain choke points along Nlex and Sctex, especially during peak seasons.
On April 8, 2014, MNTC formalized the proposal to advance the implementation of the integration as a stand-alone project. The proposed integration aims to provide motorists seamless travel from Nlex to Sctex and vice versa;
adopt a common transit ticket system that will make operations more efficient and enhance motorists’ convenience; and use the Nlex Electronic Toll Collection Dedicated Short Range Communication system (or the EasyTrip TAG) for Sctex, to increase subscription and throughput capacity for both Nlex and Sctex toll lanes.
Such integration will involve, among others, (1) upgrading Sctex’s collection system to make it compatible with that of Nlex, and (2) removal of the Nlex Dau Toll Barrier and Sctex Mabalacat Toll Barrier, plus the construction of smaller toll plazas at the Dau, Santa Ines and Mabalacat entry and exit points.
The question, therefore, is: Why is the BCDA taking so long in acting on this Nlex-Sctex Integration plan?
Czechs helping Yolanda rehab
The Czech Republic has been quietly extending significant humanitarian assistance to the victims of Supertyphoon Yolanda on Eastern Samar, Panay, Negros and Leyte islands.
Among the international agencies assisting in rehabilitation efforts is the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), a humanitarian agency that implements community rehabilitation and risk- reduction programs.
In Makato, Aklan, the ADRA program, jointly funded by the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and Norway, addresses the need of communities displaced by Yolanda for more durable housing solutions and sustainable shelter assistance. The counselor of the Czech embassy in Manila, Jan Vytopil, who recently visited Makato, notes that “with thousands of houses destroyed, housing and rebuilding of homes became necessary factors for the communities to be able to start anew.”
The Czechs built 83 new houses and repaired 101 more.
Aside from receiving construction materials, the communities were also given regular orientations by shelter specialists on structure building and were given shelter kits, which can be used for emergency shelter repairs. “The aim was to ensure that, especially the most vulnerable, people would live in decent conditions. New homes were no longer built in the immediate vicinity of the coast, so that they were not again exposed to the dangers of another disaster,” said Jana Škubalová, project coordinator of ADRA Czech Republic.
On the other hand, the ADRA Philippines program in Ajuy, Iloilo, addresses the postdisaster livelihood needs in the municipality. Their Boat Repair Assistance Grant project successfully distributed 357 boat-repair material kits to assist fishing households whose boats were damaged by Yolanda. Furthermore, 1,187 fishing kits were distributed to local fisherfolk, while 15 fiberglass boats were given to select families.
To enable the families in Ajuy to have an alternative source of means while rebuilding their community, ADRA also implemented the Cash for Work program, where beneficiaries earned P245 per day while participating in various livelihood-restoration activities like coastal cleanup, net weaving and mangrove planting. A total of 33 barangays in Ajuy have also received disaster-risk reduction (DRR) trainings and vital DRR kits, which include early-warning devices and lifesaving equipment in order to strengthen the communities’ resilience against natural disasters.
Czech Ambassador to the Philippines Jaroslav Olša Jr. has pledged that “the government of the Czech Republic will continue to support humanitarian and small development projects that aim to rehabilitate communities affected by natural calamities in the Philippines.”
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.
1 comment
Integration Plan is good but it will hardly make any dent in the traffic flow – because the increase in vehicles is a thousand times faster compared to the increase/improvements in infrastructure. That infamous parking lot at NLEX was due to the sheer number of people who suddenly decided to take the trip up north on the same day – a thousand times more cars with the same road that will not magically expand. The solution if Senator Drilon minds is to find ways of reviving a high speed rail up north. Japan has almost the same population density as the Philippines so we must learn from them. They did not build more roads, they built more railway lines!