Roxas orders review of MRT maintenance procedures after breakdowns

MANILA, Philippines—Transportation and Communications Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II has ordered a review of the maintenance procedures at the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) train line, which has been plagued by frequent breakdowns since the start of 2011.

Although the wear and tear of train cars was still tagged as the main culprit behind the problems at the MRT, the official said he had ordered an “operational audit” of the system to determine if human error and negligence contributed to the breakdowns.

“We’re making sure that everything is up to date,” Roxas said during a radio interview on Thursday.

He admitted that the number of breakdowns that have inconvenienced thousands of passengers has reached alarming levels.

The latest breakdown was last August 8, he said, when operations were stalled for close to an hour. Just days before that, on August 3, operations were halted for 30 minutes.

“We’re already talking to the MRT management and we’ve ordered them to make anticipatory repairs and maintenance to fix worn-out parts,” Roxas said. “We’re in the process of an operational audit.”

Roxas said the maintenance of the MRT train line has been subcontracted to the local unit of Japanese industrial giant Sumitomo. “We are reviewing if they are doing their jobs correctly,” Roxas said.

Roxas said the Department of Transportation and Communications would want to see if Sumitomo followed maintenance schedules, which were supposed to prevent breakdowns. “We want to see if there is a systemic flaw, or (if these incidents are frequent but isolated). I think it’s systemic because it happens too often.”

Roxas said this showed how the privatization of government services did not always deliver the desired results. He said the frequent problems at the MRT should be a warning to government agencies to ensure proper and effective privatization.

“The MRT’s maintenance is already privatized and it’s to a big company like Sumitomo. But we still experience these problems,” Roxas said. The MRT line from Taft Avenue to North Avenue serves about 500,000 passengers a day. This is much higher than its designed capacity of 350,000 passengers.