Still no BRT

Or so declared in a news item last Sunday. It’s 2022 already! This has been a constantly moving target since first promised by a Department of Transportation (DOTr) Asec in December 2018 for the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) to be completed by the end of 2020 yet. They might yet still use COVID-19 as an excuse. The delay is because they changed the entire scope and design. Which, as finally belatedly admitted in the news report, has not been approved by the NEDA-ICC yet! Which is surprising since the need for NEDA approval had already been brought up and urged by the late congressman Raul V. del Mar, in a privilege speech in Congress on August 27, 2019, and transmitted to DOTr.

The other part of the news report was the portion that read “NEDA seeks free use of prime Cebu land,” which seems bizarre for multiple reasons. First, NEDA does not implement transport projects --it is the clearing house, for evaluation and approval of all other agencies’ major projects. The only projects it implements are its own, which are mostly institutional or multi-sectoral in nature. Not road transport projects. It certainly does not implement the Cebu BRT, which is why it is strange for it to intentionally tell DOTr how to do it.

Secondly, NEDA is generally not in favor of national project subsidies and frowns on it, not “seek” it. For the city government to give “prime land” for free is nothing but a financial subsidy, a dole-out, not even to the people but to the private business who will run the project. And ICC’s own evaluation of the project showed it is extremely viable, with an economic internal rate of return of 56%! A side comment by the technical staff during the meeting stated that “even if the project cost is increased and multiplied 9 times, it would remain viable!” Which is why asking for a freebie of prime land is incomprehensible.

For the city government to do so is also against its interest and of the people. The BRT would be run by private operators, most probably on a “service contracting” arrangement with both parties having their financial costs, revenues, and balance sheets. The project and its maintenance, and the service contract payments are DOTr’s costs, the passenger fare its revenues. The buses and their operations costs are borne by the private business firms; the regular service contract fees their payment. DOTr funded the entire project and its future operations from national government funds and future fare collections. If Cebu City places a huge amount of money on the table, what does it get in return? A portion of the fare revenues? Or is this gratis to the national government? I would certainly insist this should be the other way around! The cities in Metro Manila certainly did not contribute anything to all the LRTs and MRT they have been running there.

And it’s not even sure if this pushes through. Changing the scope of this magnitude will require a thorough review. NEDA-ICC approvals of this kind won’t take three months at the most, not two years! To have it remain pending that long means something is wrong. Let’s wait and see.