JDV backs new deal on Northrail

MANILA, Philippines – Former House speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. expressed support yesterday for the renegotiation of the multimillion-dollar Northrail contract with the Chinese government and suggested that the Truth Commission investigate the alleged irregularities in the agreement.

De Venecia, however, stressed that the concept of the project, a two-way railroad track from Caloocan City to Pampanga, was sound if not for the alleged massive irregularities that delayed its implementation.

“I will even suggest that the government-to-government contract be reviewed by the Truth Commission when it convenes and I will volunteer to testify,” De Venecia said in a statement.

He said he signed the impeachment complaint more than a year ago against then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, which included the ZTE contract and the North Railway project, among other issues, and spoke and voluntarily testified at the impeachment proceedings conducted by the justice committee of the House of Representatives.

“It (Northrail project) is not a 32-kilometer ‘very expensive’ railway as alleged by critics because it is actually 64 kilometers of rail since it is two-lane and, not a one-lane 32 kilometers, involving completely new construction, while the rail to the Bicol region is one-lane and at various times over the years, only repaired and refurbished. It is also far cheaper than the various much-shorter metro rails in Metro Manila: although one cannot compare apples and oranges but the basics are similar,” he said.

According to the former speaker, the Chinese Export-Import Bank was to provide $400 million for the project while the Philippine side was supposed to provide a counterpart fund of $103 million.

De Venecia said for more than 15 years, many officials have invited the Japanese, Korean, US, Italian, French, German and Canadian governments and/or companies to rebuild the totally abandoned railways from Manila to Angeles City to Pangasinan and the Ilocos where the tracks have long disappeared, been stolen or squatted on but none of them wanted to touch the project because of the more than 40,000 squatters living along the abandoned tracks from Manila to Malolos to Angeles.

“Because of my election commitment to rebuild the railways to my province of Pangasinan and to the Ilocos, I led the campaign in convincing the Chinese government including the two Chinese presidents, two premiers, two heads of parliament, two foreign ministers, and the three Chinese ambassadors here for almost a three-year period to undertake the project on a government-to-government basis, at a time when China was still not a major industrial power and could not provide concessional financing, which in fact it finally did, in the case of the Philippine railways, for the first time in Southeast Asia,” he said.

He added that China now has the most extensive and perhaps among the most modern railways systems in the world.

When the Chinese government finally agreed, it was the Northrail Corp., subsidiary of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, National Economic and Development Authority, Office of the President, Departments of Trade, Finance, and Foreign Affairs and Justice that negotiated and completed the railway agreement, he said.

“For a long time now, I do not know what has been happening to this project that was first signed in 2004. It must have been corruption and incompetence on the Philippine side that have delayed and bungled this project,” De Venecia said.

He also recalled that he was present on the sidelines of the United Nation sessions in New York when he was asked by Mrs. Arroyo to join her in a separate meeting with Chinese President Hu Jin Tao, “who complained vigorously against the repeated delays and problems in the execution of the project.”

He said a complaining diplomat in the Chinese embassy told him one time in Manila that CNMEG, the Chinese state company, had more than 200 engineers and technicians at the project site “doing nothing because the area for construction was not ready and this was going on for months.”

The railway, which was to be extended to Angeles City and the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, was supposed to be operational this year.

“Had the rail project gone well, our second objective was to request the Chinese government to finance a massive housing program for our squatter families in the various cities in the country since China has substantially provided a successful rail and housing program for its 1.3 billion people. Alas, it was not meant to be,” De Venecia said.