LRT-MRT Common Ticketing System Scandal--another stinking legacy of the Aquino administration

Its just several months away from 2016, and while we are being amused by the theatrical antics of Ruby Tuason, several of President Aquino's henchmen are doing their fair share of creating mammoth problems that would eventually boomerang against them.

I am referring to the flurry of contracts in the form of private-public partnerships being entered into by the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) which runs to the billions and several are being undertaken simultaneously and most, if not all, have stains of corruption in them.

The DOTC and their group of publicists are trying very hard to silence opposition and even paint a "business as usual" atmosphere, but the stench of these contracts are slowly waifing in the air and discouraging potential private investors thereafter provoking highly negative reactions from the commuting public.

One of these projects is this LRT-MRT3 Common ticketing system. Various propaganda slated news stories try to paint a benevolent halo on the project, and I am in agreement with them. The plan to integrate the payment system of both railway system is a thing worth spending 1.72 billion pesos. Yet, the DOTC should do it the right way.

Based on news reports and several complaints I heard from top executives in the industry, the DOTC awarded the contract to improve the LRT-MRT3 payment system to AF consortium. Nothing wrong, except that one of the majority owners of AF consortium, which is Ayala Land and Metro Pacific Investments Corporation are themselves, operators and manages the MRT 3.

Based on bidding rules, a bidder to this project which has interest in the transportation business is automatically disqualified. I just don't know why DOTC officials glossed this over when they read the bidding documents submitted by AF consortium which states the 67% voting shares of both Ayala and MPIC there. Are these officials blind?

Most of them are, blinded by the prospect of landing executive posts at Ayala and MVP's companies post-2016. I heard Finance secretary Cesar Purisima had secured for himself a nice pre-retirement post in one Ayala company after he leaves office in 2016.

What about other DOTC officials, like Popo Lotilla, who heads the DOTC bids and awards committee? Is Lotilla literate?

There before his very eyes documents which clearly shows the conflict of interest of Ayala and Metro Pacific but he probably turned a blind eye and allowed them to bid!

Worse, before his very eyes are three financial proposals, two of them agreeing to even pay government 1 billion pesos just to take on the project.

These two offers show glaring differences: one offers to give government 1 billion pesos as concession fee upfront, upon signing of the contract.

The other, offers only 279 million pesos upfront and the rest of the 809 million, to be paid and spread over a period of ten years and contingent upon reaching a 750,000 transaction volume in ridership in both LRT and MRT.

Who manages the MRT3? It's Ayala Land. Who says how much has been generated through transactions? It's Ayala. Who now bids for the common ticketing system and proposes to pay on a staggered and conditional basis the 1 billion concession fee? It's Ayala.

So if DOTC finally awards the common ticketing project to AF consortium, the situation will now be that one company operates the trains and the payment system. Meaning, it will now be up to Ayala to say that " hey, we have reached 750,000 volume transaction and we will now pay you a part of the 800 million pesos which we did not pay" when in reality, maximum ridership of both MRT and LRT only reaches 320,000/day? So, when will government expects to reach that 750,000 required volume? After ten years?

President Aquino should seriously look into what his trusted men at the DOTC are doing. They are messing the legacy of Aquino as the only administration with less graft and corruption. As things slowly progress towards 2016, graft and corruption continue to worsen, and worsen, and it stinks.

Will there be great injury when the DOTC awards this contract to AF consortium? Yes. If this contract proceed, there is a great possibility that this will lead to higher MRT/LRT fares. Because Ayala tries not to pay government back the 800 million, then, where on earth will government get the 800 million to fund the 1.72 billion peso project? You guessed it right---from commuters.

Let us militate against this deal.

I am quite amazed why Bayan Muna and the rest of the progressive block are silent over this issue. Is it because Smart and Globe are both in the picture? Had it been a truly new leadership in BayanMuna now, and that leadership is purely steeped in socialism, it would have led to a series of bloody rallies condemning this project.

While the DOTC has'nt officially awarded the contract, there is still time for us, the People, to stand up and fight this potential scheme from harming us financially.

UNA's political blunder

The United Nationalist Alliance or UNA probably realized its error at this very early in the game. This explains why the newly formed alliance has suddenly announced its "open-ness" on the possibility of coalescing with the Liberal Party, the main administration party. What made UNA realize its early and probably, a most erroneous mistake?


Two things: when they realized that funds are not going their way and lastly, when they found themselves isolated politically. UNA misread the situation. They thought that Pnoy's trust and popularity ratings would reach a dangerously low level that it would incapacitate the President politically, and affect the chances of whoever political party Pnoy would support. The reading bombed. 


UNA's initial plan when news of the fast decreasing popularity of the administration came, was assume a combative position. However, when this news failed to jell, or failed to affect the overall trust and perception of the population behind the administration, UNA's strategy began to fall apart. 


The last punch came when UNA spokesperson former Congressman Atty. JV Bautista clarified in a statement that the UNA "shares the vision and agenda of this present administration,", that statement neutralized the UNA altogether.


How will the UNA now react on this latest pronouncement of the Liberal Party that it is now closed to a coalition with them? 


Imagine this scenario of UNA candidates announcing their support for the President's agenda but is isolated and not among those formally coalesced with the LP? There is no more differentiation. Without differentiation, how then can voters know the difference between what UNA offers and what the LP-NP-NPC coalition stands for?


IN such a very confusing situation, the winnability of candidates of the UNA is placed under extreme doubt. 


The senatorial race will now depend much on the candidates' own brand-name awareness and puts the political party, particularly UNA, as a liability rather than a plus in the campaign.


Meaning, with UNA, it is now entirely useless to join this political aggrupation simply because it isolated itself, by its own actions, from the administration.


There is nothing left for UNA but to sheepishly and probably quietly shift to the oppositive side, to the detriment of Presidential wannabe Jejomar Binay and all the rest of the relics of the alliance.


If UNA chooses now to don the "constructive oppositionist" route, it places the flow of funds to them in danger, since, everyone knows that this administration thinks along black and white lines, meaning, if you don't support it, you're a marked enemy. 


Meaning, regardless of whatever political side the UNA finally decides to place its fate on, no huge amount of funds would ever flow to their side, since financiers would always fear of retribution coming from the administration. 

The empty second envelope--January 19, 2001

A decade ago, I remember being at Mendiola bridge with several hundreds of people. This was what people who benefited from the successor administration termed as "EDSA dos"--a repeat of the first EDSA which toppled former strongman Ferdinand Marcos. Two days before, I was told by my news manager that I am being "put in the freezer" by Jesse Ejercito for allegedly being part of the conspiracy to oust his brother, former president Joseph Estrada. My news manager, along with our AVP for Marketing was just told of the bad news and they shared it with me. I vehemently protested, but nevertheless, accepted the verdict.  I never admitted anything, because I never wanted to be a squealer. 


The revolt did happen when all of Estrada's generals defected and some of his cabinet members abandoned him, and that included Mar Roxas. I was asked to report to the field and I reported live there, reporting that thousands of people were seen very close to the Palace gates. Former general and my kumpadre Ed Aglipay was asked to secure the palace, while other generals, namely, another kumpadre Romy Maganto was with a phalanx of protesters at gate 3. A team of negotiators from the Arroyo camp was sent to Erap. Erap decided to back down. Instead of using the land route going to San Juan, he chose to ride in a Coast Guard boat. The rest, as they say, is history in the most terrible fashion.


That historical event was pictured to have been a "spontaneous" combustion of public outrage when the Senate, acting as an impeachment trial, prevented the opening of the "second envelope" which allegedly contained incriminating evidence against the former president. A decade hence, and the former president learned from Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr  that that second envelope contained absolutely nothing. 


Pimentel's revelations accurately described what had happened.  That event was a poor duplicate of the first. It was a pure and naked grab of power from someone who was overwhelmingly elected by the people . It was a simple intra-elite struggle punctuated by a coup conspiracy. That coup was like lightning--it blinded millions of people and made them hate their president without even knowing why.


I was one of those who were blinded, and I only realized the error of my judgment when former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo made her election bid speech  at Rizal's day of 2003.


That was the spark that lifted the blinds from the eyes of people. Arroyo was worst than Estrada they say. Fact is, among the poor and the masses, where I belong, there was this ditty that says, " At least Erap tried to help the mahihirap..."


The lesson here is simple---don't believe rumors otherwise, you'll lose your presidential mandate.

Gloria Arroyo to serve time at Veterans Memorial Hospital

Flashback several years ago, and we see an ousted president with his son being transported to the Veteran's Memorial Hospital by land, with a full phalanx of police men and several thousands of poor people running, and trying to catch even the glimpse of the Champion of the Masses.


Fast forward and we now will see the head of the biggest syndicated mafia in the history of this country being led and transported by land with several cops and no one minding if something happens to her while going to the Veterans Memorial Hospital to serve her time.


Former president Joseph Estrada, the one falsely accused of a crime he did not commit, prays for her recovery while Susan Roces, the widow who was also the victim of the electoral sabotage allegedly committed by Arroyo also prays for her safety. 


That is justice, isn't?


Someone suggested that she be transferred by helicopter which the ex-President rejected. She said that her heli might crash, giving you a sense of how she is mentally right now. Her spokesperson says that there's a plot to kill her. Probably, since she became part of government mafia, and those whom she knew and those she hob-nobbed during her term, and enriched themselves while she enjoyed what she believed since her teens, the privilege denied her father have every reason to plot for her death.


Gloria Arroyo had every reason to will to live. She is a repository of knowledge of how to make worse an already corrupt system.


Gloria Arroyo is the key to solving the problem of corruption; she knows how the system works and she knows how to circumvent the very processes that makes this system run.


I am willing to interview her and write her memoirs if she desires.

President Aquino going the way of Erap?

Is President Aquino going the way of an Erap?

The recent Social Weathers' Station survey puts Aquino's satisfaction ratings at 46%, a drop from the previous 51%. Malacanang expressed elation because they purportedly prevented an expected 13points plus drop which happened a few weeks ago. Malacanang seems to be connecting once more with its traditional mass base which is the A-B-C classes. Obviously, they are losing the D-E classes due to inflation.

This is basically what happened to Erap in 1998-1999. There was a high optimism that prevaded in the air and shortly after a year and a half, if dissipated. Remember that Erap had the support of most of the NGO's and PO's, yet was'nt able to survive the political crisis.

Fact is, if at all, President Aquino can be charged or impeached even on a filmsy reason like indiscretion. He does'nt have any wives, yet, his celebrated dates could be used by some sinister mind in laying out an ouster move. Think about it.

Anyway, will Aquino arrest the decline of his ratings and avoid a possible repeat of the Erap episode?