Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 21) — Former Transport Secretary Joseph Abaya and Busan Universal Rail Inc. (BURI) are facing yet another graft complaint for the P3.8-billion maintenance contract of the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT 3).
Militant group Bayan filed the case at the Office of the Ombudsman on Monday and presented 25 boxes of evidence the group said would show how anomalous the deal was.
According to the complaint, Abaya, former MRT 3 General Manager Roman Buenafe, former Transport Undersecretary Rene Limcaoco and other officials awarded the contract to an unqualified BURI, to the detriment of commuters.
“May pinaboran. May kumita. Milyon ang nagdusa,” Bayan Secretary General Renato Reyes, Jr. said in an interview.
[Translation: Someone was favored. Someone made money. Millions suffered.]
Emergency procurement
The complaint primarily questioned why Abaya’s team didn’t bid out the original P2.2-billion MRT 3 maintenance deal. Instead, the contract was broken up to smaller deals totaling P3.8 billion.
However, the then-Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) had bid out the original contract twice — both times, it attracted no bidders. It was then that authorities entered into negotiations with interested companies and upped the offer.
Bayan said negotiated contracts were only allowed under emergency circumstances. While it conceded in the complaint that the poor upkeep of trains could lead to “damage or loss of life or property,” it argued the need for a maintenance provider wasn’t “sudden” or “urgent.”
“[The contract] was grossly disadvantageous, to the government and to the riding public…” the complaint read.
Unqualified winner
Moreover, Bayan criticized the decision to award the maintenance contract to BURI, claiming the group didn’t have the financial or technical capability to handle the MRT 3.
The deal required the winner to have at least 15 years of experience maintaining a railway system. Bayan said only Korea-based Busan Transportation Corp. had such experience, but it comprised just 4% of the BURI joint venture.
The remaining 96% were held by four local engineering firms, namely: Tramat Mercantile, Inc.; TMICORP, Inc.; Castan Corp.; and Edison Development and Construction. The latter, Bayan claimed, wasn’t even registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to the complaint, the previous DOTC leadership is “guilty of manifest partiality, bad faith and gross inexcusable negligence.”
Clean Conscience
For his part, Abaya said he and his team were ready to face allegations if called in by the Office of the Ombudsman.
“It is unfortunate that past efforts to put in place much-needed equipment and maintenance have been put in a bad light by complaints such as these,” he said in a statement.
“That being said… we have nothing to fear and nothing to hide. We are ready to face these with a clean conscience and the facts on our side, as we have done in a previous complaint filed against us.”
The current administration also filed a graft complaint against Abaya and BURI last October.
The Transport department blamed them for the continued glitches of the MRT 3, saying these were caused not by design issues but by preventable defects if maintenance had been carried out properly.
