‘Last two minutes’

On its 28th anniversary, the main commemorative activities for this year’s EDSA People Power Revolution will be, ironically, celebrated in Cebu and in the calamity-stricken provinces. This is because President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III decided to be in these places as the Filipino nation marks the rebirth of our country’s democracy, courtesy of his late mother, former President Corazon Aquino.

As originally announced by Malacañang, the reason for the transfer of the traditional main site of celebration – held each year at Our Lady of EDSA Shrine and People Power Monument – is largely to avoid further adding to the heavy traffic gridlock in EDSA. This is because at least 15 infrastructure projects being undertaken by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) are currently in the works all over Metro Manila.

Many of these infrastructure projects under the administration’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program have languished in the pipelines for quite some time already. The delay is largely due to the usual bureaucratic troubles from bidding wars, right-of-way claims and/or other red tape problems.

Private investors and contractors of these PPPs now finally being implemented are lucky indeed that their projects survived this long wait. Their projects are taking off but others are not moving, if not dead on their tracks. In fact, some of these multibillion-peso projects that got aborted are now pending before international courts for arbitration.

The latest one involves the filing before Singapore’s international arbitration center of the complaint filed against the Philippine government by the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Holdings Inc., operating the MRT-3. The case stemmed from the decision of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) to purchase 48 light rail vehicles from CNR Dalian of China.

The purchase is being contested by the MRT Holdings as the existing owner of MRT-3 under the 25-year build-lease-transfer contract with the Philippine government. MRT Holdings claimed they were the first to propose to the DOTC the procurement of additional MRT-3 coaches a few years ago at no cost to the government and pursuant to P-Noy’s PPP launched in March 2011.

While this remains pending, commuters of MRT-3 will have to bear with the long wait and queues. The daily queue situation is expected to get longer as more people are expected to shift to MRT where they can avoid traffic jams in Metro Manila.

In the meantime, a notice of arbitration from Singapore has reportedly been issued to the DOTC on January 21 this year. Since this involves the Philippine government, naturally we taxpayers have to pay for foreign lawyers in Singapore. This is not to mention that DOTC or MRT officials will have to fly to Singapore to testify.

Incidentally, at least 22 Aquino administration officials led by Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima are reportedly scheduled to fly to Washington. Purisima et.al are among the witnesses who would be presented to defend the Philippine government’s decision to abort the P18.7 billion Laguna Lake dredging and rehabilitation project.

The Belgian contractor of the aborted project filed a multimillion-dollar suit against the Philippine government before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington. The Baagerwerken Decloedt en Zoon N.V. of Belgium filed the suit after President Aquino unilaterally scrapped the project in 2010.

After a thorough review of the contract, identified as a “midnight deal” of the previous administration, P-Noy himself aborted it and ordered the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LDDA) to discontinue the project. Among other reasons, P-Noy noted the project to dredge the heavily silted Laguna Lake – which is being blamed for the heavy flooding in Metro Manila and suburbs – is not only allegedly overpriced but also lacks clear-cut plans where to dispose of the dredged waste materials.

In turn, the Oostende-based company initiated a P6-billion lawsuit before ICSID where it charged the Philippine government for breach of contract. The Philippine government officials will be presented before the ICSID tribunal that scheduled the hearing on March 3 to 14, “where some, if not all, of the parties’ witnesses/experts will be called for cross-examinations, among others.”

Among other “witnesses/experts” to be presented in the scheduled hearing in Washington next week include former Manila mayor Alfredo Lim. While he was then mayor of the city of Manila, Lim told us the same Belgian company undertook the P4.5-billion Pasig River dredging project. Lim impleaded before the Office of the Ombudsman the same Belgian company for non-full compliance of the contract along with former Philippine government officials.

While preparing for his trip to Washington next week, we ribbed ex-mayor Lim if he is also willing to make a connecting flight to Hong Kong to do another errand for P-Noy. That is, to make the formal apology for the botched bus hostage rescue at the Quirino grandstand in Luneta. Lim was then Manila mayor who supervised on the ground the bungled police operations in August 2010.

Lim quickly cited he immediately apologized and even had a Buddhist mass held at the exact site of tragic incident a few days after. “How many times should we apologize?” Lim rebutted. Like his staunch loyalty to Mrs. Aquino, Lim defended her son P-Noy’s refusal to apologize as demanded by Hong Kong officials.

Lim recounted his loyalty to the Aquinos started when he was then superintendent of the Northern Police District in charge of EDSA. He is credited for not taking any dispersal actions against the crowd that gathered at Camps Aguinaldo and Crame during EDSA-1. Instead, he joined the EDSA camp and the rest is history.

Already booked for flight to Washington, Lim is not sure though if he is also invited to the EDSA commemorative activities this week.

Meanwhile, government projects not entangled in any legal problems are set to go on full blast implementation. Like in a basketball game, the Aquino administration is trying to beat the “last two minutes” to further score points before the end of P-Noy’s term in June 2016.