Breaktime: Thread secret

One PPP project under the Aquino (Part II) administration perhaps may be underway by next year: the so-called AFCS, or automated fare collection system.

AFCS is a hi-tech system where one passenger ticket may be created for all three light rail systems: the Edsa line (MRT), the Taft line (LRT 1) and the Aurora line (LRT 2).

The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) recently held a public bidding for the project. AF Consortium of Ayala Corp. and Metro Pacific Investment Corp. (MPIC) submitted the lowest bid of just over P1 billion, or P1,088,103,900 to be exact.

It is an interesting figure because it is now the talk of business town. It was really a close contest between the apparent winner AF Consortium and the also-run SM Consortium. The former actually beat the latter by a measly P103,900 in the bid for the 10-year AFCS concession.

Under the rules, bidders like AF Consortium and SM Consortium (which submitted “negative” bids) will pay the government for the right to operate the AFCS. In other words, the government makes money out of it.

Question: How come the lowest bid wins, meaning, that the government prefers to get the “lowest” amount?

Anyway, the DOTC declared the one-ticket project as part of the administration’s PPP, or public-private partnership, infrastructure-building scheme of our leader Benigno Simeon (aka BS), supposedly designed to cover the government’s constant shortage of funds for much-needed infrastructure like roads, train systems, airports, ports and even school buildings.

After more than three years of the Aquino (Part II) administration, the PPP program is still far from taking off, without any single construction of any infrastructure project started so far. In fact, in the business community, they have changed the definition of the PPP from “power point presentation” to “post P-Noy project,” owing to the dawdling phase of the program’s implementation.

Finally, however, the AFCS project under the PPP program can actually serve at least the poor commuters on those three light rail systems, who must form lines at the train stations that reach all the way to the edge of the earth. To think, there are more than one million poor riders on all those light rail systems every day.

At least with the AFCS project, commuters’ queuing time for buying the freaking tickets may be lessened. All they have to do is put an advance “load” on their e-tickets. That is, of course, if they have the money for the advance load.

The implementation of AFCS, as a project, will only start this January—that is, hopefully, if it would not be troubled by kinks in the bidding or something.

The system is then expected to run fully by the end of 2015, which is around the time our leader BS will say goodbye from the Palace.

Apart from unifying the ticketing system of all the light rail systems in Metro Manila, the AFCS can also be expanded to cover fares for buses or even toll payments at the South and North Luzon expressways.

If you use the NLEx—going north to Tarlac, for instance—you have to pay for three different tolls because of the weird payment scheme for NLEx and SCTEx. If you use the SLEx, you also pay for three different tolls—one of which is for the SLEx itself—the second for the short “connector” road after the SLEx, and the third for Star Tollway.

Okay, so far so good. The Aquino (Part II) administration finally has something to show under the PPP program. We can now expect a hi-tech one-ticket system.

Still, from what I heard, the Edsa line (MRT) has been so neglected that more than 20 of 35 trains are not running. They are just rotting away in the depot.

It so happens that, more than three years ago, at the start of the term of our leader BS, the same group that apparently won the AFCS bidding, MPIC, also submitted a proposal to the DOTC concerning the Edsa MRT line.

The company was willing to invest more than $700 million on the MRT, which it would use to buy out the MRT line interest of a private consortium called MRT Corp. headed by the Fil-Estate group.

MPIC also wanted to help the government redeem part of the debt it incurred for the MRT construction. More importantly, MPIC proposed to buy more trains and cars—brand-new!

While the DOTC did not reject the MPIC proposal—not “officially” anyway—MPIC would soon give up on it, for the simple reason that the DOTC did not even give the MPIC documents a serious study.

As it turned out, some people in the DOTC wanted to buy the cars and trains themselves, thus arranging a deal with suppliers abroad. This led to the controversy over the claim of the Czech ambassador to Manila about an attempted extortion involving DOTC officials.

Last month, when the DOTC held the bidding for a P4-billion contract for new trains and cars for the Edsa line, the Czech company called Inekon withdrew its bid, mysteriously providing no explanation. Thus, the lone bidder was the Chinese company called Dalian. DOTC Secretary Joseph Emilio Aguinaldo Abaya declared the Chinese company as “fit” for the contract.

From what I gathered, even the advance subway companies in Hong Kong acquire trains and cars from Chinese companies. Still, based on word in the business sector, those Hong Kong firms chose to send technical staff to the Chinese factories to monitor the manufacture of their orders 24/7. That kind of “fit,” anyway.

Still, word goes around that the Chinese firm Dalian is having doubts on the legality of the supply contract for the Edsa line. The problem is this: The government, through the DOTC, is awarding the contract, while the Edsa line is owned by the MRT Corp., which is technically still a private company.

By the way, MRT Corp. used to operate the Edsa MRT line before the government—under the cute administration of Gloriaetta—took over operations.

The saddest thing about it all is that we, the suffering commuters, already have the infrastructure for the Edsa line. Yet the system is not working properly because it does not have the trains and cars.

As for Ayala and MPIC, they may win the concession to operate the one-ticket system, but what use is an “efficient” ticketing system to the public without the trains? For that matter, as we follow this thread of thought, how does the consortium make money from tickets without the trains?