Part
1. MRT-3 mess the worst kind of corruption
October 5, 2014 11:14 pm; Appeared in the October 6, 2014
edition of the Manila Times
Why shouldn’t it be
derailed? Memo that only 2.5 pieces of rail replacement available. Inset: MRT-3
car derailed in August.
Why do MRT-3 trains keep breaking down that the train system
needs to be shut down for hours at times; why do the trains stop in the middle
of the tracks, and why are the trains derailed and jump off the tracks?
Why are there fewer trains now compared with the previous years
such that its carrying capacity has decreased, causing the long queues of
commuters at the stations?
Why were there no such incidents and queues before, from 2000 to
2011?
The reason is quite simple, and I was astonished when I learned
its details, shocked at why we Filipinos allow such anomalies that torture the
working class daily, and outraged that mainstream media hasn’t gone to town
against this scandal.
The P1.2 billion reason
The reason involves the P1.2 billion—so far—in maintenance contracts given by
the DOTC starting October 2012 to two firms that appear to have close ties with
President Aquino’s political allies.
These outfits – first PH Trams and then APT-Global – turned out
either to be bumbling amateurs in light-rail vehicle maintenance, or decided to
skimp on the necessary spare parts to keep the trains running efficiently.
They didn’t import and stockpile the high-quality spare parts
needed for the light-rail vehicles and the replacements for the tracks. Parts
were, instead, cannibalized from the other cars that were put out of operation,
so that only 50 out of the 73 cars operating in 2011 are running now.
One evidence of this is a September 4, 2014 report to the DOTC
official in charge of the MRT-3, Renato San Jose, which read:
When Global-APT JV assumed as (sic) the Temporary Maintenance
Provider of MRT 2 on 4 September 2013, there were twenty nine pieces of Stock
Rails replacement. Since then, the said number has gone down to two and a half (2.5)
pieces. Furthermore, the latest Rail Replacement Summary as of 06 August
revealed that in at least two instances, Global APT JV has used old rails
instead of new ones.
This is one reason why the trains’ speed has had to be slowed
down: parts of the track had worn out and should have been replaced, but hadn’t
because there were no replacement rails. The result: fewer trains have been
running, requiring commuters to queue for hours to ride the jam-packed, not to
mention, dangerous trains.
Capital costs are huge for a train maintenance operator since
the spare parts needed have to be ordered in advance because of the minimum
six-months’ time for these to be manufactured and shipped to the country from
abroad.
Light-rail system parts aren’t exactly items one could buy at
the hardware store or ordered at amazon.com: They’re things made of high-grade
steel which mostly only the original builder can provide, and on a “per-order”
basis.
A unit of the giant manufacturing Japanese firm Sumitomo that
built MRT-3 with Mitsubishi Corp. in the late 1990s, when it maintained the
system until September 2012, had a six-months’ inventory of the usual parts
needed to be replaced.
Manual signaling system
There is a second reason why the MRT trains’ speed had to be reduced. Its
signaling system – its computerized, sensor-based network that manages railway
traffic in order to prevent trains from colliding – had been built more than a
decade ago by a unit of the Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier Inc. The
firm informed the DOTC in 2010 that the system had to be upgraded, as there
were no longer parts for it since it had become outdated.
The upgrade would have cost P185 million, and included in the
maintenance contract. It wasn’t. Why? Was it too big a cost that would eat into
the contractors’ profits?
Bombardier engineers who were initially hired by PH Trams to
maintain the signaling system reportedly left in a huff in 2013 when they
stopped receiving their due fees.
The result: There’s an inadequate signaling system that train
operators have resorted to a manual method, using “walkie-talkies’ bought from
Ace or True Value, to report their positions, a process that requires much
slower train speeds.
Out of the total cost for maintaining the MRT in the past ten
years, 60 percent was used for buying spare parts for the cars and rail-tracks,
as well as for maintaining the computerized signaling system, while the
remaining 40 percent was for management and labor costs.
These means that if the two maintenance operators who got the
P1.2 billion contract from the DOTC had not purchased the parts needed for the
trains’ maintenance, they could have easily pocketed the 60 percent that should
have been used for their parts inventory, which means a huge P742 million
income. The Senate committee that has been investigating the MRT problems
should subpoena these firms’ books.
What makes this kind of corruption so outrageous is that the
grafters were as dumb as they were so arrogant. They thought they could make
money by taking over the contract of a world-class, experienced engineering
firm that built and had maintained the system for a decade, and that they
didn’t need to import the high-grade precision-engineered spare parts for the
trains.
I can just imagine what a top DOTC and Liberal Party official
told his accomplices: “Pukpok lang naman ang mga kailangan sa mga bakal na
gulong at riles na iyan, hindi na kailangang mag-import tayo ng spare parts
kaya malaki ang kita natin. Magagaling naman ang mga Pinoy na mekaniko. [A little
pounding is all that’s needed on the steel wheels and the rails. We don’t
really need to import the spare parts, so we’re going to make a killing on
this. And Filipinos are good mechanics.]
Because of such arrogant stupidity and insatiable greed of Aquino’s
people, hundreds of thousands of Filipino commuters have been suffering every
day going to and from their workplaces.
Continued next week.
Part
2. MRT-3 may collapse anytime
October 7, 2014 11:04 pm; Appeared in the
October 8, 2014 edition of the Manila Times
Second of three parts
That warning was made back in September 2011 by TES Philippines
(TESP) Inc., which has been the maintenance operator of the Metro Rail Transit
System Line 3 (MRT-3) since 2000. The firm is a joint venture of Sumitomo and
Mitsubishi Corporation, the two Japanese companies that built the light-rail
mass-transit infrastructure in the late 1990s.
President Benigno S. Aquino 3rd to date has failed to implement
the solution the TESP said was the only solution to prevent such collapse:
Immediately supply an additional fleet of trains and upgrade the electrical and
electronic systems supporting it.
We are just plain lucky that the relevant incidents that have
occurred so far have only involved trains that had stopped mid-way between
stations, car doors that had remained opened even as the train had sped away
toward its next destination, and a car that got derailed, plowing its way into
a busy thoroughfare in August. But given the bad state of MRT-3 since 2011,
according to the firms that built it and had maintained it for a decade, it is
a disaster waiting to happen.
I thought it was another case of incompetence bordering on
criminal negligence by this student-council government, as former Senator Joker
Arroyo vividly described this Administration. It is appearing, though, to be
the consequences of a case of a botched extortion attempt.
I cannot find enough words to express my outrage: The solution
had been delayed for three years now because the Czech firm, Inekon Group,
which was supposed to supply the new fleet of trains, refused to play ball, and
protested the alleged attempt by transport and communications officials to
extort $30 million as bribe for the $174 million contract to push through.
The DOTC did finally find a supplier to replace Inekon – a
Chinese firm, but which reportedly has no experience in building the kind of
double-articulated light-rail system that the MRT-3 uses. But even if it
manages to manufacture the cars, the next question is, when will the delivery be?
Late 2015, the DOTC says. No way, industry sources say, predicting that it will
be in 2016 at the earliest, after Aquino steps down.
And I’m sure DOTC Secretary Emilio Abaya would vouch that this
Chinese firm didn’t have to pay a single centavo of bribe money for the P4
billion supply contract it got without any bidding. The Chinese just don’t do
that kind of hanky-panky.
With the increase in ridership in the four years since that 2011
warning was made, and the reduction of train cars from 72 to just 50 running
now, this Administration has criminally subjected our commuters to the risk of
death and injury if the MRT trains do collapse.
In a detailed six-page memorandum dated 21 September 2011 to
Honorio Vitasa, then general manager of the transport and communications
department’ MRT3-EDSA Line unit, maintenance operator TESP President Kiyoshi
Morita said that the train cars’ “overloaded condition exceeded the maximum
allowable ridership, which will give mechanical and electrical stress to
equipment and damage (sic) the total train system.”
Eventual Collapse
“Eventual collapse of the rolling Stock System and even the Wayside system may
happen if drastic and immediate changes will not be made,” Morita warned. (The
rolling stock refers to the light-rail vehicle cars, while the “wayside system”
refers to the tracks and the electrical/electronic systems to keep the cars on
it.)
Morita provided statistics which showed that ridership increased
from 11.5 million in August 2005 to 13.8 million in the same month in 2011,
which is way beyond the number of passengers the light-rail vehicles were
designed to carry. On weekdays, according to Morita, the average ridership had
increased from 417,000 in 2005 to 510,000 by 2011.
Using Morita’s annual figures from 2005 to 2011 to derive the
annual average rate of increase of 7 percent annually in daily ridership, MRT-3
would now be carrying—dangerously—625,000 passengers daily, nearly double the
350,000 people it was designed to transport per day.
Morita in his memorandum explained: “Since the year 1999, TESP
has already made many countermeasures and changes to prevent the recurrence of
many failures. Seemingly and theoretically and based on the maintenance manual,
these improvements will result in better performance of the trains.”
“However, with this overloading situation, it is very difficult
to recover the peak performance of the trains in spite of the many changes that
it has implemented because this is beyond the capacity of the trains to perform
normally and recover after serious stress,” the memorandum read.
He explained: “Please note that even if overloading is
experienced only for a few times, the elevated stress will weaken the
electrical and mechanical properties of the equipment. In the case of MRT-3,
the number of passengers onboard the trains exceeded daily, except Sundays
[emphasis in the original], the maximum number (394) allowed per car.
“Consequently, failure resulting in the abnormal removal of
trains, and a major incident will be experienced,” according to Morita, who put
that sentence in bold and underlined it for emphasis.
Morita, though, was writing in that peculiar Japanese way of
understating things.
What he really, obviously meant for “abnormal removal” was the
derailment of a train or a portion of it (which had already actually
happened)—a grave disaster if a car on an elevated portion of the tracks were
to be derailed and fall on cars and buses along EDSA, which is what the
Japanese executive was likely referring to when he used the term “major incident.”
“Worse,” according to Morita, “breakdown of the vital equipment
may occur at almost the same time and this will affect the secondary and minor
equipment. At this point, any good maintenance may not be enough to recover the
regular performance of the trains, and safety will be compromised. Also,
maintenance will be too costly and impractical to perform, while the recovery
and safety may not be “assured.”
To the junk shop
Again, the Japanese executive was being polite. What he obviously meant: “If
breakdown of the system finally happens, you’d be better off just selling the
MRT to the junk shop.”
Morita explained that temporary solutions, which his firm in
fact had been doing, involve shortening the cycle for the cars’ preventive
maintenance periods, and taking measures to reduce the number of passengers on
the cars.
However, Morita emphasized: “These are not enough to solve the
problem on the deterioration and early ageing of the equipment, which was
already evident. Eventually because of the steady increase in passengers, the
Rolling stock and the wayside equipment will again experience many failures and
troubles.”
Morita recommended: “We need to pursue the capacity expansion
project of the MRT3-system to provide additional trains for revenue service. By
adding more trains at the main line, we will relieve the present MRT-3 trains
from overloading and prolong the life by having lesser electrical and
mechanical load on the trains. We need to upgrade the wayside equipment to
accommodate the changes and slow down the system’s deterioration.”
Morita concluded his memorandum by emphasizing his warning: “We
reiterate that the train and the system of the MRT-3 are designed for a maximum
capacity of 394 persons per car. If more passengers than the maximum capacity
ride the train even for a short time, the train system might be damaged. The
overloading would have detrimental effects resulting in the shorter life of
parts and early deterioration of the trains and may lead to a breakdown and the
total collapse of the Rolling stock.”
So, did this Administration heed Morita’s warning?
Yes, and no. And the story behind the “yes” and the “no” will
outrage you, enough for you to wish that this Administration would go to hell
ASAP, I guarantee that. Read about it on Friday.
CHINA STATE FIRM TO
SUPPLY TRAINS
Part
3. Why isn’t the Senate investigating the outrageous P4-B MRT deal?
October
14, 2014 11:50 pm; Appeared in the October 15, 2014 edition of the Manila
Times
Third of a three-part series
I’m referring to the contract signed by the Department of
Transportation and Communications (DOTC) with a Chinese firm in June to buy 48
light-rail train cars for the decrepit Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3) worth
P3.9 billion.
It’s certainly a bit ironic: A state-owned company of a country,
which President Aquino has called a bully in claiming our territory, has bagged
not only a huge procurement government contract under his watch, but a
strategic one involving the safety of our main metropolitan mass transit
system, the MRT-3.
Maybe it’s so stupid of us as a nation, but so brazen – and
arrogant that they believed they could get away with it – for the DOTC
officials to have done so. Consider the facts:
The Czech Ambassador to the Philippines Joseph Rychtar alleged
in April last year that the DOTC’s MRT-3 general manager Al Vitangcol 3rd asked
$30 million (P1.3 billion), in bribes for the Czech firm Inekon Group to be
given the contract to supply 52 new light-rail vehicles (LRVs, or the train
cars) for the mass transit system. Rychtar alleged Vitangcol was extorting the
money for a group that included personalities closely linked with the Liberal
Party.
This occurred, he claimed, in July 2012. That was when the DOTC
was still headed by Mar Roxas. It is not known whether Roxas’ transfer just a
month later to the interior and local government department was related to the
bribery attempt.
(The reason why Inekon, the fourth largest supplier of LRVs in
the world, was keen on the contract is that it had pirated train engineers from
CKD Tatra, which was the original supplier of MRT-3 trains, and therefore was
confident it could build the right trains and within schedule. CKD Tatra had gone
bankrupt in the early 2000s and was sold to a German engineering firm.)
A political earthquake
As an ambassador for five years (to Greece and Cyprus), I can
say without a doubt that such an accusation of high-level corruption by an
envoy against officials of the host government is a political earthquake. In
countries complying with the rule of law and with an independent press, that
would have required the host government dropping everything to get to the
bottom of such serious allegations. If we only had a fiercely independent press
that was not under Aquino’s influence, I’m sure this government would have
already been toppled in the wake of such scandal.
What makes the ambassador’s allegation credible, that it could
have involved the highest levels of this government, is that funding for the
contract was made available at that time, unknown to most people, but told to
the Czechs.
This was because Budget Secretary Florencio Abad had, at that
time, hijacked the Congress-approved budget through his scheme that was
euphemistically termed the “Disbursement Acceleration Plan.” Through the DAP,
which was exposed only last year, Abad issued on the last day of the year (Dec.
28, 2011) what was called a “Notice of Cash Allotment” (NCA-BMB-A-11-0023872)
to the DOTC.
The NCA informed the DOTC that P4.5 billion was already in the
Land Bank of the Philippines for the department to use for the “capacity
expansion of MRT3,” which meant money was available for the purchase of new
trains to add to its 50 odd cars in service.
I was told that the Czech ambassador had been told that if
Inekon agreed to the “arrangement” for the payment of $30 million, the contract
would be awarded in a few days’ time and payment for the contract made right
after that.
Sorry I have to use that worn-out cliché: Only in the
Philippines. After the extortion attempt was exposed by the Manila Times’
chairman emeritus Dante Ang Sr. on June 2013, DOTC Secretary Emilio Abaya
matter-of-factly vouched for his official, while presidential spokespersons muttered
their overused “we-will-investigate” replies.
Suspended a year later
Vitangcol would even remain in his post, and was suspended only a year later
for involvement in another allegation of corruption – one of his relatives and
his friends were part of the firm that got the P600-million maintenance
contract for MRT-3.
In his statement submitted in May to a committee of Congress
investigating the allegations, Rychtar said: “I, as the Ambassador of the Czech
Republic, confirm that an extortion attempt took place in July 2012, followed
by other suspicious circumstances, which led to a questionable bidding process
in March 2013.”
He added: “I wish to inform you… that the Czech company Inekon
Group was, of course, not blacklisted officially by the DOTC, but we did
receive the informal information that our proposal would not be entertained,
which was manifested by the fact that our letters to DOTC (asking about how to
participate in the bidding) were unanswered.”
The bidding the Czech ambassador was referring to actually was
done on June 11, 2013, which, unlike most government biddings, was not open to
media. DOTC spokesman Michael Sagcal would only reveal the results of the
bidding after it has taken place:
“Two Chinese companies participated in the bidding, Dalian
Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co. CNR Group and CSR Zhuzhou Electric
Locomotive Co. Ltd.”
“CSR Zhuzhou was declared ineligible by the DOTC’s Bids and
Awards Committee due to its failure to submit a certificate of reciprocity and
to comply with a technical requirement. As a result, its financial proposal was
no longer opened,” the spokesman said.
What a charade.
The “CNR” in the CNR Group, of which Dalian Locomotive and
Rolling Stock Company is a member firm, stands for China North Railway, while
the CSR in CSR Group Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co. Ltd is an acronym for
China South Railway.
If their names seem the same except for the “North” and “South”
adjectives, it is because both were formed in the 2000 and 2002 period out of
the mammoth “China National Railway Locomotive & Rolling Stock Industry
Corporation,” the monopoly in train service in the country. As with the original
mother company, the two firms are both state-owned enterprises supervised by
the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, and likely under a single
commissar.
In short, the two bidders were two firms owned by the same
entity, China, and the DOTC claims there was a proper bidding?
Given our quarrel with China, shouldn’t we be realistic and
worry that if our relations get worse with that superpower, it may decide to
chuck unilaterally that deal, give some convoluted excuse for doing so, then
watch the MRT-3 collapse with its decrepit trains, and gloat at the resulting
political chaos here? Have the DOTC officials compromised our national
security?
LRV manufacturers
There has been a boom in light-rail mass transit systems in the world because
of environmental concerns and the US’ recent rush to adopt the technology.
Hence, there are more than a dozen LRV manufacturers today. The four firms that
have the biggest shares are Germany’s Siemens (which bought CKD Tatra, the
company that manufactured the first MRT-3 trains), the Japanese Kinki Sharyo,
the American United Streetcar, and the Czech Inekon. Other LRV manufacturers
are the Canadian Bombardier Transportation, the Austrian Lohner-Werke, the
Swiss Stadler Rail, the German Duewag, and CAF USA.
None of these firms, if we are to believe the DOTC, were
interested in supplying MRT-3 with their LRVs? Only the Chinese Dalian, which
hasn’t manufactured the kind of LRVs needed by MRT-3, showed an interest?
And why this Chinese firm, which on its website itself says that
the MRT-3 deal is the first contract it has obtained to build such type of
LRVs? It even noted that the LRVs will operate in extreme conditions, “close to
the equator, where the monthly maximum temperatures are above 30 degrees, the
air humidity and salt content high, and with a complex weather with typhoons
and rainstorms.”
And when will the Chinese deliver its 48 trains? “The first
train is scheduled for delivery in 18 months,” its website reported in June.
That means we will see a prototype only at the end of next year. Delivery of
the trains is likely to happen after Aquino steps down from office and bunkers
down in Hacienda Luisita.
Why aren’t we outraged that the DOTC, manned by Aquino’s
officials, are taking us for fools?
DOTC officials are accused by a reputable Czech firm Inekon of
trying to extort money for the contract to supply MRT-3’s new trains. The DOTC
undertakes, less than a year later, a bidding Inekon did not, or could not
participate in. A Chinese firm with no experience in LRV manufacturing “wins”
in a bidding participated in by its sister company.
And there is nothing fishy in that?
What we should all be livid over is this:
If the Czech envoy’s accusations are proven right, that means
Aquino’s officials had delayed the procurement of new trains—which would have
made MRT-3 safer and reliable, and reduced commuters’ waiting time—in order to
make money for themselves and more likely for the Liberal Party, and I would
suspect also for this President. That’s the worst kind of corruption. Even our
national security has been compromised.
End
Blogger's Note: I did not write this article, Amb. Rigoberto Tiglao did. This article appeared in the Manila Times in three (3) parts, the first part appearing on the October 6, 2014 issue, the second on October 8 and the third on October 15, 2014. Assuming that his information is correct and suspending, for the moment, Tiglao's bias against the present administration, we find that he actually asks a very important question: "why aren't we outraged that the DOTC, manned by Aquino's officials, are taking us for fools?" Have we so totally fallen for the Daang Matuwid sloagan that he and his minions have been bombarding us with for the past 4 years? One will also notice that all of the space devoted for in the news and in blogs have been all about the corruption of the Vice President. Some commenters in the online edition of the Manila Times have questioned its decision to run this piece by Tiglao instead of running another off the mill story about the Binays. I actually support the Times decision to run this piece on the ground of materiality. What is the point of running stories on Binay? It will ultimately have no effect on the day to day running of Daang Matuwid. What power does Binay have now? Apparently, his popularity has got the Administration scared shitless which is why they would mount a black propaganda campaign long before the scheduled elections. In any case, I chose to run the full piece here because I think it is worth reading all in one go, rather than in parts, so we can all ask ourselves, "why aren't we outraged???"
