Palpak

The Department of Transportation must be jinxed. Through the years, over several administrations, it can’t seem to get its projects done on time. Yet, it is a very important infrastructure agency with very vital projects that should have been delivered decades ago. Let us see a few examples, starting with what DOTr can no longer deliver during BBM’s term.

That includes the two major railway projects, the P873.6-billion North-South Commuter Railway (Clark to Calamba or NSCR) and the P488.5-billion Metro Manila Subway Project (MMSP).

The reason: right of way problems.

The projects are funded by the Japanese government and the Asian Development Bank. The loan covenants our government signed with JICA and ADB require our government to pay people who will be displaced by projects, including informal settlers at full replacement cost.

However, Congress passed the ROW Act (RA 10725), that mandates no payment for informal settlers affected by projects, but they have to be moved to a resettlement site with basic facilities and services. The law demands that if they refuse, the court has to issue a writ of demolition to remove their properties.

Under the ROW Act the government is prohibited from providing financial compensation for the demolished homes of informal settlers. However, foreign loan agreements require payments to all affected residents, regardless of legal status.

There is now a question of which one takes precedence, a loan covenant with a foreign government or a law passed by our Congress. DOTr received a DOJ opinion favoring RA 10752, over financing agreements. The problem is, without the JICA financing, there is no project.

JICA and ADB require compliance to the loan covenant.

Here’s another complication: Remember how Congress played magic tricks on the national budget by moving our commitments to foreign assisted projects to the unappropriated portion so they can have their pork barrel funds? Well, the 2025 budget for DOTr’s foreign-assisted projects was slashed by up to 80 percent. How will these major rail projects proceed with no money?

So, DOTr has no choice but to stop procuring ROW for both projects until these legal and budgetary problems are resolved. Didn’t former Transportation Secretary Art Tugade say that most of the subway project ROW has been addressed? Apparently, that’s not the case and the subway contractors are limited to doing subterranean works right now.

As of DOTr’s latest data, the NSCR is 27.29 percent complete, while the MMSP is at 18.89 percent. The government initially targeted partial operability for both by 2028.

Then there is the never-ending problem with the Common Station in the North EDSA/Trinoma area. That’s supposed to provide seamless connectivity between LRT1, MRT3 and MRT7 under one roof for the convenience of commuters.

Unfortunately, after over 13 years, the project remains unfinished and marred by design defects, safety issues and budget controversies.

Again, Art Tugade has declared that the problem, which started during the Arroyo administration, has been solved by him. Until it apparently wasn’t.

The root cause of the Common Station problem can be traced to LRTA (GMA’s time) changing the location to favor SM, who advanced P200 million to LRTA for the revisions. It removed one part of the contract with DMCI for a similar station connecting Line 1 and Line 3. A rail transport expert told me that was a strategic mistake, as Line 3 should have extended all the way to Malabon, and have a common station with Line 1 at the crossing near Monumento. That was in the 1998 Master Plan.

The project started moving again under Tugade who decided to relocate the Common Station from SM to Trinoma, after six years of indecision during the Mar Roxas and Jun Abaya era at DOTr. A bidding was held. The project was eventually awarded to BF Corp., owned by the late Bayani Fernando for a contract price of P2.783 billion with a completion date of Jan. 4, 2021.

DMCI declined to bid after calculating it could not deliver at the set price ceiling. A rail expert said the contract also mistakenly included supply and installation of a signaling system to handle three lines with different signaling protocols. Also, BF, whose forte is steel fabrication, may not have the required expertise for this railway signaling requirement.

I received a memorandum from the so-called concerned employees of DOTr that raised a number of issues on the status of that Common Station. Some of the issues are technical in nature that involve safety as well as the ballooning of costs.

The DOTr employees questioned DOTr’s approval of the design change to an all-steel viaduct structure proposed by BF from the original concrete and steel. I can’t go into the technical issues raised for lack of space.

There were problems with the execution of the project as well. Suffice it to say the project is far from completed more than four years after its original completion date of Jan. 4, 2021 and no target completion date has been set.

The rail expert also told me there is a recent missed opportunity. Had DOTr accepted the Sumitomo-MPTC unsolicited proposal to takeover MRT3, it would have partly solved the Common Station problem, as well as a second one: constraints on Line 3 capacity. Line 3 can continue to Monumento, instead of commuters transferring at the Common Station. Line 1 can end at Monumento, instead of operating all the way to Trinoma. MRT3 limitation at its maintenance depot (underneath Trinoma) would be lifted, since heavy maintenance works can be relocated to allow use of more train cars.

So, we have another stalled project. Why did JICA and ADB allow Tugade to break ground on the rail projects without certainty on the ROW issues? Now, we have stalled projects whose costs will escalate. They rushed to start the subway project during Duterte’s term for bragging rights and bahala na what happens next.

Hay naku. Puro palpak.

Boo Chanco’s email address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow him on X @boochanco