Drivers’ licenses: Bid rigging feared

“Nawalan ng preno (The brakes failed),” the driver reportedly shrieked before crashing his tour bus onto an electric post, killing 14 passengers and himself, and maiming 43 others in Rizal province Monday. Brake failure is the usual excuse of the dumb and reckless. Brakes don't suddenly malfunction, but deteriorate over time from (mis)use and non-maintenance. Drivers would sense if something’s wrong. The international rule is for them to check the BLOWBAG – battery, lights, oil, water, brakes, air (tire pressure), gas – before scooting off. In this highway tragedy, the engine conked out several times as the bus headed off from Quezon City two hours earlier. Survivors recounted smelling the stench of scraping brake linings, seeing smoke from the wheels, and feeling heat seeping through the bus floor from the start. Meaning, the brakes already were stuck; the engine shutdowns were telltale signs of trouble. Yet the driver sped on to catch up with the tour convoy, hardly slowing down the winding hill.

The bus was part of a tour company’s fleet. A mechanic should have inspected it before dispatch. On record should have been a periodic preventive maintenance. Likely those shoddily were done. The fleet owner should be made accountable for the loss of lives and limbs.

The government is liable too. The Land Transportation Office’s job is to: (1) inspect and register motor vehicles, (2) issue licenses and permits, (3) enforce land transport rules and regulations, (4) adjudicate traffic cases, and (5) collect revenues for the government. Road safety and clean air are its aims. The LTO goofed in this case. Likely bribed, it licensed as professional driver someone apparently untrained and careless. For more bribes it let the bus through the motor vehicle inspection scheme (MVIS), and registered it even if un-roadworthy. It then endorsed the entire fleet to the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, which for yet more bribes certified it for public utility.

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Is the bidding for the LTO’s drivers’ license cards being rigged?

The lowest bidder, Banner Plasticard Inc., is complaining of arbitrary disqualification. It submitted a bid of P750 million to produce the plastic license cards for five years. Last Feb. 9, however, the LTO pulled it out of the running on three minor technicalities, it told this columnist.

The second bid is P65 million more, by the joint venture of Filipino trader Kolonwel and Indonesian paper supplier PT Pura. Kolonwel is a perennial bidder for supplies to the Departments of Education, Interior and Local Governments, Health, and others. The third bid is P75 million higher, by German biometrics provider Dermalog.

The 100-percent Filipino-owned Banner is seeking reconsideration of the three reasons for disqualification. The three concern the automated fingerprint identification system.

The LTO claims that the manufacturer's sales literature that Banner submitted does not state 99.9-percent accuracy in matching 10 million drivers’ license records. Nor does it define one-second response time per transaction. Lastly, that Banner supposedly would subcontract the fingerprinting to a Russian firm.

Banner contends that evidence of compliance should not be limited to a company brochure. Better bases, according to the Government Procurement Reform Act, are unconditional statements of specification and compliance, samples, and independent test data, which the 13-year-old firm submitted. Banner also clarified that it is acquiring and not merely subcontracting the Russian AFIS technology, as the LTO misunderstands.

Initially capitalized in 2004 at P300 million, Banner has been supplying plastic cards to banks, credit card companies, prepaid top-up cards, and lotto scratch cards in the Philippines and abroad.

The LTO had run out of plastic license cards two years ago. It has been issuing mere paper receipts of license issuance or renewal, on which it stamps validity every six months.

The paper can be torn, wet, or soiled, and does not safely store biometrics data such as fingerprints. At the very least, it is ridiculous, when carded at a bar for right age, to pull out not a credible tamper-proof card but a half-size bond paper.

More basic than that, the LTO is rushing to extend the validity of drivers' licenses to five years from three. This, when the crying need is to screen all drivers for ability and courtesy, as part of solving the traffic crisis.

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“Sons of Lourdes we'll ever be.” Lourdes School-Quezon City will hold its annual alumni homecoming reunion on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017, 4-11 p.m., at the High School grounds. Highlight: Golden Jubilee HS Super Batch 1967 to celebrate its 50th graduation anniversary. Host: HS Silver Jubilee Batch 1992. “Be enriched or enrich others by your presence,” Religion teacher Epifanio Paras requests. “Be a blessing by attending.” (Find out too if he still chainsmokes.)

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

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