LRT-1 can’t use 80 of 120 new coaches because leaky. Ordering the trains at P100 million each, the past admin had waived the requisite leak test. Factory power-hosing would have revealed waterproofing defects on roofs, sides, and underbellies for correction. Rains will harm electrical-electronic parts and riders. P8 billion wasted.
Tutuban-Calamba commuter rail can’t use nine new classy coaches too because wrong sized. Philippine National Railways first bought in 2018 six Indonesian narrow wheel coaches for the narrow-gauge tracks. PNR reordered six more the following year. But some bright boys inserted nine more Chinese coaches – all unsuitable standard gauge. P981 million wasted.
The Dept. of Transport procured 20 tunnel boring machines in 2021 at P1 billion each when Metro Manila’s subway digging needs only four. As huge as houses, TBMs drill, expel earth, and install pre-fab concrete walls. At the end of the bored tunnel, they’re left underground. The extra TBMs supposedly would speedup work. Yet resistance to home and shop demolition has delayed it four years. P16 billion wasted.
Indecision first set back the subway three years. Instead of starting at San Jose del Monte and ending at Manila airport underneath EDSA, it was realigned in 2017 from Valenzuela to Bicutan traversing Marikina fault and two flood zones. For show, DOTr announced to build and operate three stations first by 2022. Engineers foresaw impossibility since there was no space for excavated earth and pre-fab factory. Lawyer-bosses overruled them, then raised the subway budget to P355 billion.
Mindanao’s first railway to connect three Davao provinces is five years late. Initially diesel locomotives were to run on single tracks. Altered in 2019 to electric engines on double tracks, the budget ballooned from P35 billion to P82 billion. No loan was secured.
Three admins messed up railways from 2003 to 2022. $421 million was borrowed from China in 2003 for a Caloocan-Malolos NorthRail along PNR’s old line. Squatters were evicted. But technical disputes and kickbacks derailed everything. The country repaid the China loan, plus interest. Yet no tracks were laid nor trains made.
In 2011, a five-fold re-costing was proposed for Japanese funding of NorthRail. Criticisms halted it. A new 148-km rail, Clark to Calamba, was approved. A third of that North-South commuter rail construction will start only next month. Operation is set back many years.
In 2012, the then-Dept. of Transport and Communication took over MRT-3’s private concession. Fourteen-year-long maintenance servicer Sumitomo was replaced by an undercapitalized six-month-old outfit of an admin party mate. Exposed for $30-million attempted extortion from MRT-3’s Czech train supplier, the maintenance contractor was replaced by another front of the party mate.
Trains, tracks, power supplies, signaling, and stations deteriorated. Collisions, derailments, and sudden braking injured passengers. Still, another front company of the party mate was hired for P4.25-billion rehab and maintenance. Four new inexperienced “partners” were brought in: a house builder, a general merchandiser, an agricultural supplier, and a plumber.
DOTC bought 48 Chinese coaches for P3.85 billion in 2013. None were usable because overweight for the tracks and undersized for the maintenance-repair hoist. All arrived late, with no motors. Meaning they were untested at the factory for 5,000 km for durability, braking, and traction. None had onboard signaling, so were invisible from train safety monitoring screens. All have asbestos wall soundproofing, banned from use because carcinogenic.
Due to dysfunctional rails, commuters resort to short-route buses and jeepneys. Traffic jams all cities.
New Railways Usec. Cesar Chavez and PNR General Manager Jeremy Regino aim to fix the mess. They expertly had run LRT before.
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