DOTC mired in legal problems

I can almost imagine DOTC Sec. Jun Abaya heaving a sigh of relief after getting word of the Supreme Court TRO on the common station. He must have been relieved not to have to make a decision for the meantime. And if the SC eventually rules in favor of SM, he can tell Ayala it is out of his hands.

The big problem, however, is that he had to delay the awarding of the LRT1 extension project. That’s a real pity. The project is more than a decade delayed and the MPIC-Ayala consortium deserves to be awarded this project after it emerged the only bidder.

It was wrong for DOTC to include the common station in the project. Now they have to find a way of carving that out. Even SM is saying they have nothing against awarding the LRT1 project now so long as their objection on the common station is resolved.

 For a department with only slightly less lawyers than the Justice department, DOTC is bogged down by legal problems. They haven’t had a really smooth awarding of projects because questions are inevitably raised about how they conducted the bidding or the legality of their actions…

There is actually another problem with Sec. Abaya’s decision to move the common station to the Trinoma side. Rail experts I consulted told me that the SM side is more ideal if the needs of MRT 7 are to be considered. Abaya also does not have the support of his own technical staff at DOTC according to a published report.

DOTC’s rail transport planning chief, Joel Magbanua had pointed out that locating the light rail common station at the Trinoma mall—across the street from the originally approved site—would open the government to additional legal action from the operator of the soon-to-be-built Metro Rail Transit line 7.

“The MRT-7 contract provides for the joint station between MRT-7 and MRT-3 at SM Annex,” he said in a March 18, 2014 memorandum to DOTC Usec Rene Limcaoco. “Among the material breaches defined in the MRT-7 contract is the failure of the [Republic of the Philippines or DOTC] to interconnect MRT-3 and MRT-7 to establish the joint station,” the official warned.

MRT 7, also long delayed, saw some glimmer of light last week. Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima finally signed the performance undertaking for MRT 7, a requirement that had held up the project for most of the Aquino watch. But DoF will not release it until they get the implementing guidelines from DOTC.

But DOTC will not release the implementing guidelines until they resolve the common station issue on LRT 1. So my guess is that this is going to take a while again, but the MRT 7 ball is now back in DOTC’s hands. Hopefully it will not vegetate there but based on DOTC’s track record, it just might.

Of course the biggest legal problem of DOTC is what to do with MRTC, the private company that owns MRT 3. That commuter line will not get any real improvements until government is able to reach an agreement with MRTC.

Sec. Abaya keeps on saying government will buy out MRTC and the Finance department is already working on it. But nothing has moved. Government seems to just be kicking the can of problems down the road hoping it will just disappear.

In the meantime, there is that arbitration case in Singapore that was filed against DOTC. MRTC is protesting the failure of DOTC to seek its concurrence before it started buying new railcars as provided for in the build lease transfer agreement.

We have been saying that DOTC’s problem is rooted in having too many lawyers calling the shots, and not enough engineers and technical staff. Butch Abad called it a technical deficit.

This technical deficit was cited as the reason for DOTC’s inability to get any project going. But having too many lawyers didn’t help DOTC. The lawyers have not been able to bring about a smooth cascade of projects because of all things, legal problems.

Indeed, even Sec Jun had to admit DOTC’s lack of useful personnel during the Senate hearing on DAP. Sen Nancy Binay revealed that DOTC gave up P14.5 billion of its budget to DAP because, according to Sec. Abaya’s letter to Sec. Abad, DOTC’s lack of capability to carry out the projects.

Sec. Abaya- I see the DOTC really lack the organization in personnel to handle the budget that we have, to push out all these projects. Thus, we are currently adjusting the organization, hiring people because it’s only now in this administration that we have the opportunity of resources of really catching up on infrastructure, Your Honor.

The Chairman (Sen. Chiz Escudero). So, you’re two-thirds already finished with the term of President Aquino. You only have one-third remaining, even less than that. Isn’t it a bit late for you to realize these things at this time?

Sec. Abaya. Well, Mr. Chairman, in the one and a half years that I was in office, I am doing my best to really catch up and deliver the projects for our people.

Sec. Abaya thus admitted to the Senate that I was right all along in pointing out DOTC’s performance deficit. In fact, it turns out I was even somewhat positive about DOTC because I was nagging them to get projects going in the belief that they had what it took to do that. Now I find out I was nagging them in vain. Wala pala talagang ibubuga. I wasted time and newsprint. But why did they propose to include all that money in their budget if they had no capacity to implement?

I think we need a reset of DOTC as a concept… as a department. We also have to officially carve out the C or Communications side in DOTC because it no longer handles that area… Mar Roxas gave up the responsibility to supervise Communications when he took office.

It makes sense to devolve metro mass transit systems into metro governments like MMDA. Maybe Cebu could have implemented that BRT project sooner if it was handled locally.

I didn’t think much of MMDA’s Francis Tolentino during his first two years in office, but you have to give him credit for being gung-ho about his job. He is not afraid to try out solutions, no matter how funny sometimes, like that Pasig River ferry made up of Utility Vans on a barge. At least he tries to solve problems.

If he is made responsible for mass transport in Metro Manila, he is likely to come up with a practical and timely solution. Because he has a definite constituency unlike DOTC, there will be pressure for him to act to produce results and not just studies.

The biggest mistake of P-Noy was appointing two politicians to head DOTC – Mar Roxas and his clone, Jun Abaya. Their priorities are not in line with the mission of DOTC as a vital infrastructure agency. They both dislike making decisions involving large sums of money because they are worried about keeping their image clean.

They need not worry, however, if they followed the example of Ping de Jesus who showed how it could be done. Too bad Ping resigned very early. He has proven himself at DPWH under Tita Cory and later when he rolled out the modernization of NLEX. He is the right technocrat for the job.

Roxas and Abaya can also take lessons from Sec Babes Singson who is able to make decisions, deliver infra projects and still keep his image clean. The other difference between Roxas and Abaya with Sec Babes is that the DPWH chief has a sense of urgency.

Roxas and Abaya are happy to give the impression of being busy but delivering nothing much that’s tangible to the people. In other words, puro porma lang. It is a pity that the Aquino administration is not likely to deliver even a rather simple project to add four measly kilometers to the existing LRT 2 line. 

A reset of DOTC, distributing its functions to local governments and other agencies that can act more expeditiously is in order. It should be doable too in the couple of years P-Noy has left. We shouldn’t have to waste another centavo of public funds on a disaster of an infrastructure agency.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco