LRTA bought trains sans tracks to run on

MANILA, Philippines - Track-less trains anyone? If it’s putting the cart before the horse, it should only be in the Philippines.

Believe it or not, this information cropped up in yesterday’s hearing of the House committee on oversight, where the Light Rail Transit Authority purchased in 2006 a total of 48 trains at $1.7 million each (total $81.6 million), without any railway to run on.

“What I don’t understand is why do we have to buy a train without any railway. Normally, you build a track and put a train on it later,” said northern Samar Rep. Paul Daza, who has a background on trains, told the committee of Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez.

LRTA corporate secretary Hernando Cabrera admitted the acquisition, but pointed out the Japan Bank for International Cooperation-funded loan, which the Department of Finance facilitated, was for the purpose of increasing the capacity to accommodate passengers.

“We had to increase the capacity from the usual 48,000 passengers a day. Now, we can accommodate 500,000 passengers. That is one of the prerequisites in order to have an extension,” Cabrera, who represented LRTA general manager Mel Robles, told Daza. All in all, the LRTA operating the Baclaran-Monumento route now has 148 trains, which made Daza wonder even more, in light of the fact that the Metro Rail Transit in EDSA (LRT-3) only has a total of 73 trains, and which in fact carry “more passengers” than LRT-1.

Of the 73, Daza said around 60 of them are operational while the rest are on standby.

“How come you’re telling us that you needed these trains? Are all of these trains fully utilized? It doesn’t make sense,” Daza said. Cabrera clarified later that these trains could be used once the Monumento-Baclaran route extends to Bacoor in Cavite. But the project proponent in the Bacoor LRT extension, Lavalin of Canada, had “pulled out” from building and financing the railway structures, according to Melchor Plaza, deputy secretary general of Aangat Ka Pilipino (1-AK) party-list group.

Reps. Abraham Mitra of Palawan and Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro City made the same queries, but mostly delved on the LRTA decision to “disqualify” construction magnate Felipe Cruz Jr. of Filsystems in the project that would extend LRT Monumento to SM North EDSA.

Copyright copied

Cruz, whose family had built the flyovers along EDSA and several others, complained that his design for the proposed Monumento-SM North, which is protected by a “copyright,” was also copied in toto by LRTA.

Suarez told the contractor “you can’t sue the government, but you can ask for just compensation.” Cruz replied: “I’m not suing the government, I’m suing the person. I’m more concerned about the breach on the copyright (than in the disqualification).”

Cabrera told the lawmakers that Cruz was disqualified solely on the basis that he failed to submit an electronic filing of his income tax returns, a procedure that is “fatal” to any bidder, as far as the LRTA “circular” is concerned. “It’s too minor a thing to disqualify only because of the electronic or manual filing of ITRs. I don’t know why this circular is so sacrosanct that you’re singling out a very big company and disqualify them,” Rodriguez said.

“I’m surprised that a big company like FF Cruz or Filsystems will be disqualified only because of the manual or electronic filing of ITR. It is, to me, a very minor thing,” the opposition congressman said.

Suarez, who said he used to run a similar business, cited his case, where he lost in the bidding because of a missing “table of contents” page, but which disqualification was upheld by the Supreme Court, invoking the line “failure to comply.”

Cruz said the LRTA decision on their unsolicited proposal was unfair, especially because the agency observed a double-standard policy, when even their foreign competitor was allowed to submit a missing document, but they were not.

“All of us should have been disqualified. They (foreign bidder) didn’t have the certificate of compliance. That’s tailoring!” a visibly irate Cruz said. When asked to comment, Cabrera replied: “May we be allowed to search our records your honor. We have so many of them.”