Hurry up, and wait?
THAT old army saying about starting early and ending up waiting in the queue finds resonance in today’s traffic. Maybe, we should be grateful for small mercies. Last week, after waiting 30 minutes because of the knotted traffic snarl, Indonesian President Joko Widodo and his entourage got off their limousines and walked the last three kilometers to the parade grounds in Cilegon, Banten province, for the 72nd anniversary of the country’s defense forces.
During our last elections, a presidential candidate said that Metro Manila’s standstill traffic was a sign of progress.
My children, and more surely my grandchildren, could not believe when I recall that when I was in high school, I would take the Marikina bus at Tambo, Paranaque, via EDSA and transfer at Cubao to another bus to bring me to Loyola Heights: I did that morning and afternoon, to and from school.
Twenty years later, I could still take the MRT at Magallanes station to Araneta Coliseum to catch the Ateneo vs. La Salle games.
Those are all in distant and fading memory...
*** But why do we get the feeling that we are digging ourselves out of a hole?
• We add 400,000 motorcars every year for Mercs, BMWs, Toyotas, Hyundais, etc., which fight for decreasing space on our roads.
• None of yesteryears’ motor vehicles end up at memorial park.
• Even the surplus jeepneys which were resurrected and recycled from scrap resist DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade’s plan to prescribe a 10-year life span.
*** A former classmate and a man of consequence, Oca Violago, swears that he would rein in the horsepower stallions in his 20-car garage if he could take mass transit that works.
He recalls how New York mass transit works because New York Mayor Michael Bloomeyer (1 Jan 2002-31 Dec 2013) took the subway to work.
It may be too much to expect this of Hizzoner Erap. But our next best hope is M. V. Pangilinan’s 120-billion offer to rehabilitate, maintain, and operate MRT 3.
It is an idea whose time has come. (In fact it was first tendered in 2012 with Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific Investment Corporation (MPIC) and Ayala groups’ 112-B unsolicited proposal to rehabilitate and upgrade Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT3), the Philippines’ busiest elevated railway running along EDSA.
The package for the MRT-3’s rehabilitation, maintenance, and operation is now 120 billion, which includes the firm’s equity requirement.
DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade granted the group of MPIC and Ayala Corp. the original proponent status for the MRT-3’s rehab, operations, and maintenance. The proposal would involve the rehabilitation of the train system without any fare increase for at least two years, as well as the handling of operations for 30 to 32 years. The takeover proposal includes replacing the rail tracks and upgrading the power supply and the train stations, and improving the reliability of trains.
MPIC has the track record of successful partnership with Light Rail Manila Corporation (LRMC) in LRT 1. LMRC President and CEO Rogelio Singson said, “The unsolicited proposal is a total complete package with contract provisions, because we are just lifting the same provisions of the concession agreement on the LRT-1. In other words, imbis na iba ‘yung operator at iba ‘yung maintenance provider, our offer is we’ll take over, just like the Line 1.”
The Department of Finance (DOF) is in discussions with DOTr to come up with a decision on the proposal of MPIC to acquire the government’s stake in the MRT-3.
President Rodrigo Duterte has the numbers and the gumption to make this happen. Violago says that no more should the riding public be held hostage to “bureaucratic analysis-paralysis.”
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