Business class seats

IWOULD like to thank Senator Grace Poe for using and promoting the term “business class” this week in the Senate discussions on mass transport.

But I don’t thank her for what she meant by mentioning the “business class”, which was for the Department of Transportation to consider having “business class” coaches where select passengers would pay P200 to P300 for a “comfortable ride”.

The responses and reactions to her idea of “business class” coaches in the MRT have been overwhelmingly negative and furious — and rightly so. I join fellow commuters in rejecting such an idea as flatly wrong.

If private cars choke EDSA daily, the solution is to limit or ban private cars along EDSA so they hog the road. (And also to prioritize public utility buses in Metro Manila’s principal thoroughfare.)

If private cars choke EDSA, the solution cannot be at the expense of MRT passengers who have been deprived of adequate number of coaches and trains. If the MRT has only 15 trains left, just imagine what worse hell would befall passengers if the DOTr implements Senator Poe’s idea of having “business class” coaches. Worse, the idea could unleash a new wave of fare increases across the board, considering how addicted to money and profits the MRT owners and the DOTr are.

If private cars choke EDSA, the solution should start with asking why many city and suburban residents bought cars in the first place. They did so because of the sorry state of the mass transport system. They are actually running away from the still-rotten and still-inadequate MRT.

Over at Twitter and Facebook, the daily outpouring of grief and hardship by MRT and LRT passengers continue, punctuated by disbelief at Senator Poe’s “business class” suggestion. I advise the senator to listen to them closely, because the MRT and LRT are supposedly chiefly for them, not for the business class.

Here’s the rub about Senator Poe’s introduction of the term “business class”. It should remind the Senate and the nation that the business class still actually owns the worst MRT in Southeast Asia, and we as taxpayers are still forced to pay for annual leases for the most substandard, sometimes dangerous commuter train service many are forced to use.

From the past to the present administration, no senator has dared speak on the ownership and onerous lease agreement of the MRT. Even the president who made commuters believe he will work for them has not lifted a finger to review the MRT lease agreement. The Supreme Court has also not acted on the petitions against MRT and MRT fare hikes, which also question the legality and terms of the lease agreement.

The MRT and LRT are now monuments to what business class greed and state sellout could do to mass transport. Just review these facts and figures:

• $190 million: Total investment of the private consortium MRT Corp. for the MRT, a “build-lease-transfer” project, from 1995-1997.

• Seven: Number of companies involved in the MRT Corp., namely FilEstate, Ayala Land, Anglo Phil Holdings, Ramcar Inc., Greenfield Development Corp., Antel Land Holdings, and DBH Inc.

• $488 million: Total loan obtained and guaranteed by the Philippine government to complete the financing for the MRT Corp.

• 15 percent: Total return of investment guaranteed by the Philippine government to the MRT Corp. for 2000-2025.

• $2.4 billion: DOTC estimate of the 15 percent return of investment guaranteed by the Philippine government to the MRT Corp. for 2000-2025.

• $779 million: Total “equity rental payments” paid by the Philippine government to the MRT Corp. from 2000-2013.

• 1100 million: Monthly payments made to Sumitomo, the private company that maintained the MRT for the first 10 years.

• 1517.5 million: Maintenance contract fees paid to private consortium PH Trams-CB&T for 10 months in 2012.

• 1685 million: Annual maintenance contract price paid to private company APT Global for maintaining the MRT, under whose contract the worst MRT accident happened.

• 73: original number of MRT trains.

• 15: number of operational MRT trains as of October 2019.

• 11.72 billion: Automated Fare Collection System bagged by the PangilinanAyala consortium.

• 11.4 billion: LRT-MRT Common Station Project, bagged by the PangilinanAyala consortium.

• 165 billion: LRT1 privatization and extension deal bagged by the PangilinanAyala consortium composed of Metro Pacific (55 percent), Ayala (35 percent) and Macquire Holdings of Australia (10 percent).

• 32 years: Duration of the LRT1 privatization and expansion contract with

the Pangilinan-Ayala consortium.

• 164 billion: Total tax exemptions guaranteed by the Philippine government to the Pangilinan-Ayala consortium.

• 135 billion: Total additional cost to be shouldered by the Philippine government for right of way, new coaches, LRT coach depot improvements and LRT satellite coach depot construction.

• 15 billion: Subsidy guaranteed by the Philippine government to the PangilinanAyala consortium.

• 1500 million: Total amount guaranteed by the Philippine government for a “block

account” or a standby fund for use of the Pangilinan-Ayala consortium.

• 10.25 percent: Rate of LRT1 fare increase guaranteed to the PangilinanAyala consortium every two years, aside from “inflation-based fare increase” every four years and another “five percent rate increase” when the LRT1 extension project is completed.

• 11.2-billion: Congress-approved supplemental budget in 2014 for MRT rehabilitation.

• 17.4-billion: Congress-approved budget in 2015 for MRT rehabilitation.

• 14.65-billion: Congress-approved budget in 2015 for MRT subsidies.

Yes, Senator Poe. Yes, fellow commuters. We already have business class seats in the MRT and LRT. But the seats are not in the coaches. They’re in the boardrooms where day in and day out super profits pour in, at our expense. If they must be given other seats, it should be in court and they should sit alongside negligent and sell-out state officials, and where we should ask for damages and for a stop to their bottomless greed and ineptitude.