Land transport a mess under President’s pet

The quasi-judicial LTFRB is at Abaya’s beck and call; the LTO defies legal orders with impunity for his sake. That’s the kid brother P-Noy never had.

Hatred for VP Jojo Binay is why President Noynoy Aquino now wants an Anti-Political Dynasty Law passed. Being a dynast like Binay, P-Noy used to resist bills to enforce the constitutional ban on familial control of national and local elections. P-Noy has a cousin in the Senate, a just deceased uncle at the House of Reps, and other kin in Tarlac provincial and Antipolo City politics. Binay has two daughters in the Senate and House, and a son as mayor of superrich Makati City.

But P-Noy and Binay have parted political ways, and openly are lambasting each other. P-Noy couldn’t leave un-refuted Binay’s recent remark that elective office should be “one to sawa (have one’s fill),” or so long as a family that wants to serve gets elected.

To that P-Noy retorted in his SONA as a dig at Binay’s presidential ambition: “I used to be against depriving a person the right to run for office just because of a famous surname. But I have realized: there is something inherently wrong in giving a corrupt family or individual the chance at an indefinite monopoly of public office... We cannot be certain if the person who will succeed me will possess sincere intentions – he may instead choose to lord it over our people to pursue his personal interest. I believe it is now time to pass an Anti-Dynasty Law.”

Fair enough. May the next few weeks – before the dynasts’ filing of candidacies for the 2016 election – see P-Noy making Congress fulfill his wish.

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Whose mad idea was it to put more buses on Metro Manila’s main avenue supposedly to ease the frequent breakdowns of MRT-3 commuter trains? Rep. Jonathan dela Cruz (Abakada Party) asks that, in wake of news that regular train riders are shunning the special buses despite the lower fares and fewer stops.

Daily motorists-commuters along EDSA (Epifanio delos Santos Avenue) deem it harebrained. The MRT-3 was built on elevated tracks along EDSA precisely to ease traffic and provide rapid mass transit. Any additional bus worsens gridlocks that occur any time of day or night. That the 40 buses run even if empty also intensifies air pollution.

“Then again, it may not be a bad idea for the ruling Liberal Party,” dela Cruz mocks. The buses could be another dirty fundraiser for the 2016 election. There are many reasons to suspect so:

• The scheme came not from the MRT-3 management but the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB). MRT-3 is the Dept. of Transportation and Communications’ metro rail operator. The quasi-judicial LTFRB, borrowing franchising powers from Congress, merely is attached to the DOTC for supervision. Its duty, over which the DOTC should have no sway, is to license public utility and school buses, jitneys, taxis, and haulers. That MRT-3 trains, tracks, and facilities are deteriorating due to shoddy upkeep by an LP-owned contractor is DOTC Sec. Joseph Abaya’s accountability. More so since he, in grave conflict of interest, also is LP acting president. For LTFRB chairman Winston Ginez to be rescuing Abaya from his mess, albeit in vain, is to misuse the LTFRB, dela Cruz says.

• Hinting of sleaze, dela Cruz says there was no mandatory public hearing to franchise the 40 new EDSA buses. Such hearing would have revealed who the bus owner is. Too, why he is favored with a subsidy in order to offer lower fares. And why enjoy fewer stops, and exemptions from anti-traffic plate-number coding and sticking to bus lanes, which other bus franchisees must obey? Dela Cruz says the LTFRB fielded the buses despite its own moratorium on new franchises and its traffic reduction along EDSA. He likens Ginez’s scheme to another one he recently exposed about a favored Luzon bus line. So influential is the owner that Ginez reportedly tricked the two other LTFRB commissioners, Ariel Inton and Ronaldo Corpuz, into extending expired and restoring rescinded franchises, despite faulty papers. Dela Cruz has initiated congressional inquiries into the anomaly, and filed a complaint with the Ombudsman.

Dela Cruz has been denouncing too the Land Transportation Office, DOTC’s arm for drivers’ licensing and vehicle registration. A public outcry ensued when recent floods crumpled and corroded the LTO’s supposedly world-class, tamper-proof metal vehicle plates. All new registrants and renewals must shift to the new plates that the DOTC contracted anomalously in 2013.

DOTC’s Congress-approved budget for the project was only P187 million, yet it was awarded to a P3.8-billion bidder. DOTC also advanced P478 million to the contractor, even though it had long been blacklisted from government contracting due to forgery.

The Commission on Audit last month declared the project unlawful because of the over-budget and over-payments. Normally an agency given such stern COA memo would stop its illegalized project.

Not the DOTC-LTO. There the LP acting president has the impunity to defy the law, because President Noynoy Aquino regards him like the kid brother he never had. Abaya was the military aide-de-camp of P-Noy’s mother President Cory, and later youngest member of his clique of LP congressmen. Said Abaya’s spokesman of the COA memo against the anomalous vehicle plates: “We will not stop it, unless we receive a direct order saying so.”

Proximity to power is power itself. With P-Noy immune from suit, so is Abaya — for now.

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