Senate to include traffic projects in emergency powers bill

MANILA, Philippines - The emergency powers bill to address the traffic crisis being hammered out in the Senate will detail the list of transportation projects that will be covered by the measure, leaving no room for corruption once it is enacted into law and implemented, Sen. Grace Poe said yesterday.

Poe, chair of the Senate committee on public services, said the panel is still hard at work on the draft owing to the frequent changing of information and proposals from the Department of Transportation (DOTr) headed by Secretary Arthur Tugade.

She cited the case of the cost of the various land, sea and air transportation projects the DOTr earlier pegged at P3 trillion or equivalent to the country’s entire national budget in this year, and is now proposed at P8 trillion.

The senator said the panel is also likely to weed out from the bill many of the projects pushed by Tugade as they have nothing to do with addressing the traffic crisis, such as the purchase of equipment to produce license plates.

“Since there (deliberations on the emergency powers bill) started, their requests and proposals and their costs kept increasing and increasing,” Poe said in a radio interview.

She also pointed out that many of the DOTr’s proposed projects still do not have any feasibility study or detailed engineering plans, and were not coordinated with key agencies such as the Department of Public Works and Highways, which means it would take several years before these could be implemented or way after the proposed three-year emergency powers have expired.

The huge cost of the projects, lack of details as well as clear source of funding have further fuelled suspicions from many sectors that unscrupulous DOTr officials could use the emergency powers as a cover for possible corrupt deals, she said.

“So whenever they talk about procurement of projects, or we need to buy this or that, we have to be careful so the public is not duped,” Poe said.

The measure seeks, among others, to allow the DOTr to do away with the usual bidding and other procurement procedures while the emergency powers is in effect.

Poe said she will provide in the bill that the projects to be implemented for traffic alleviation will be those already approved by the National Economic and Development Authority as well as those with complete plans to prevent the inclusion of onerous projects.

Bill allows negotiation of contracts

The traffic emergency powers bill the House of Representatives is considering allows the negotiation of contracts, without public bidding, for infrastructure projects estimated to cost trillions of pesos.

Catanduanes Rep. Cesar Sarmiento, transportation committee chairman, said the other day Bill 4334 authorizes President Duterte, through Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade as traffic czar, to negotiate contracts.                

However, he said the bill imposes strict conditions for the exercise of such authority to ensure transparency and prevent irregularities.

He said among such conditions are: the projects to be negotiated should immediately ease traffic congestion and the terms of the contract should be advantageous to the government.

He added that the measure also creates a joint Senate-House oversight committee that would act as big brother to Tugade, his undersecretaries and other DOTr officials who would be involved in the negotiation of contracts.  

On Wednesday, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez reiterated his concern over conflict-of-interest issues he has raised against DOTr undersecretaries recruited by Tugade.

“With all these people at the DOTr, I am sure they will just negotiate these huge contracts,” he said.

One official who Alvarez claimed is “conflicted” is Noel Kintanar, a former assistant vice president of Ayala Corp. who was instrumental in his company’s acquisition of rail projects under the Aquino administration.

In one hearing, the Speaker asked DOTr officials: “Whose interest are you really serving?”

Kintanar has made himself scarce in the hearings of the transportation committee. On Wednesday, Tugade sent a new appointee, assistant secretary for railways Cesar Chavez.