IS OMBUDSMAN Conchita Carpio Morales negligent, or just slow to act, or is she part of the cabal to keep Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya at the helm of the Department of Transportation and Communication until the last day in office of his patron the sitting president?
The question is being asked because despite the deafening clamor for the sacking of Abaya – at least for his mismanaging and at most his approving questioned contracts of the Metro Rail Transit Line-3 – he and his boss President Noynoy Aquino are still locked in a tight “walang iwanan” embrace.
Is the 74-year-old Ombudsman unaware the 17-kilometer MRT3 line, where more than half a million commuters gamble their lives and equanimity each day, has become an embarrassing Aquino legacy and a monument to incompetence and corruption?
While Messrs. Aquino and Abaya were cracking their heads last Friday over how to ensure the technically adequate and legally defensible maintenance of the MRT system, a train stalled (again), forcing irate passengers to get off near Guadalupe bridge and look for another ride.
It cannot be that Morales is waiting for a complaint to be filed by the justice department, which may not be too eager to do that and irritate the boss. That would be like waiting for Godot.
The Ombudsman can, and should, initiate her own investigation even without boarding and checking one of those rickety trains or without any survivor of an MRT accident filing a complaint.
Under Article XI of the Constitution, the Ombudsman – anointed together with her deputies as “protectors of the people” – has the power and the DUTY to “investigate on its own, or on complaint by any person, any act or omission of any public official, employee, office or agency, when such act or omission appears to be illegal, unjust, improper, or inefficient.” Repeat: DUTY.
However, prosecuting the crooks behind the MRT mess will have to be handled separately, and swiftly, from the other question of who owns, who manages and who regulates the system.
Malacañang wants the government to buy out the private co-owners of the MRT system claiming that that move will clear the way for the improvement of its service and viability.
President Aquino issued Executive Order 126 in February 2013 directing the DOTC and the Department of Finance to execute an equity value buyout of the private company that owns the MRT to free the government from having to make Equity Rental Payments (ERP) to it.
It is not clear how the buyout will rehabilitate the system, but the legal rigmarole may help Malacañang rehash the issues and go around the arbitration case in Singapore over nonpayment of ERP filed against the government in 2008 by the private owners.
• Questions raised on gov’t buying MRT
QUESTIONS: Why is the Aquino administration pressing the buyout only now in the dying five months of President Aquino’s term? Is a midnight takeover by another group of private investors in the offing?
More questions: Is the ideal setup for the MRT for it to be owned by the government, managed by a private group, and regulated by the government? Or should the roles be reshuffled?
Another question: Why does the government have to buy full ownership of MRT when it is already some 80 percent in control?
Chairman Robert John L. Sobrepeña of the MRT Holdings II Inc., owner of MRT Corp. which in turn owns the MRT3 system, has said: “I’m amazed that Abaya is still pursuing the so called buyout. The reason (it) will fail is that it just doesn’t make sense to spend P54 billion to buy the MRT bonds, which are already owned by the government through the Development Bank of the Philippines and Land Bank of the Philippines.”
In 2009, MRTH sold bonds during the Arroyo administration. This explains why the DBP and the LBP now hold 80-percent economic interest in it. The bonds do not translate to equity, but the government through the two banks now has seven of the 11 board seats in the MRTC, including the chairmanship (held by LBP National Director Tomas T. de Leon Jr.).
Sobrepeña noted: “They are spending P54 billion to buy something which they already own, so that they can control MRTC, which they already have complete control of via the DBP-Land Bank nominees in the board.”
The MRTC has opposed, meanwhile, the signing of the P3.81-billion negotiated contract between the DOTC and the Busan-led consortium for the three-year maintenance of the MRT system.
The objection was conveyed to the DOTC in a letter signed by MRTC chairman De Leon, copy of which was given to media. It was not clear why the letter was dated Dec. 21, 2015, or if De Leon of the Land Bank still holds the same views expressed in his letter.
The other members of the consortium led by South Korea’s Busan Transportation Corp. are: Edison Development & Construction, Tramat Mercantile Inc., TMICorp Inc. and Castan Corp., all of which have no track record in light rail operations.
The De Leon letter said the Busan contract violated the DOTC’s Build-Transfer-Lease agreement with MRTC and that engaging an unqualified maintenance provider puts in danger the lives of commuters.
Pointing out that there was no emergency justifying dispensing with public bidding, the MRTC said that “the rapid deterioration of the MRT3 System which the DOTC was using as an ‘emergency’ started when DOTC took over the maintenance in October 2012”.
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