‘Chop-chop’

Last month, after undergoing a four-day annual maintenance check coinciding with the Holy Week break, the Metro Rail Transit 3 broke down again. Commuters, although used to regular glitches in the MRT for some time now, were outraged.

The Duterte administration must be just as outraged, because it is now sharing the blame for the disastrous state of the MRT 3. If left unchecked, the constant breakdowns in MRT service could one day lead to an accident resulting in deaths and serious injuries.

Numerous stories have been written, accusations hurled and formal charges filed against several of those believed responsible for this mess. The Aquino administration had scrapped the maintenance contract with Japan’s Sumitomo and rejected a government-to-government deal proposed by the previous train supplier, Czech company Inekon. The Czech ambassador at the time accused then MRT-3 general manager Al Vitangcol of trying to extort $30 million from Inekon in July 2012, later bringing down the amount to $2.5 million, for the approval of the contract.

When Inekon refused, the maintenance deal worth $1.15 million a month was awarded without public bidding in October 2012 to PH Trams, a two-month-old local company with P625,000 in paid-up capital. The firm’s directors included Vitangcol’s uncle-in-law, Pangasinan provin- cial accountant Arturo Soriano, who ran for mayor of Calasiao under the Liberal Party in 2013 but lost.

Vitangcol stressed that the contract was signed by his boss, Joseph Abaya, who was the secretary of transportation at the time. Abaya, who claimed he merely approved what was endorsed to him by Vitangcol, was initially spared indictment by the Office of the Ombudsman. All the officials involved may be held accountable now that the deal is under scrutiny by the Senate.

Abaya’s department later tried to correct the mess by ordering 48 trains from China’s Dalian Locomotive at a cost of P3.8 billion. The trains were delivered – but without engines or signaling systems, which still have to be procured from Germany and South Korea, respectively. The situation prompted Sen. Grace Poe, whose committee recently conducted an inquiry into the state of the MRT-3, to conclude that the train procurement was a “chop-chop” affair. Officials have said the trains cannot be used for at least three years, by which time they would have rusted in haphazard storage.

With the sweetheart deal amounting to about P290 million, this case should warrant an indictment for plunder. If the accusations are true, the MRT-3 was turned into a milking cow and a disaster waiting to happen. The nation must have zero tolerance for such a cavalier attitude toward the utilization of people’s money.