Favored of the month

No wonder the MRT line on Edsa keeps on breaking down!

Well, our deeply concerned DOTC, the Department of Transportation and Communications, cares so much for the more than half a million daily riders of the MRT that the MRT still has no maintenance contractor.

To think, the DOTC so far already conducted two biddings for what it called “emergency” maintenance contract for a short duration of six months.

The “emergency” actually arose when the long-time MRT maintenance contract of the DOTC pulled out early this year. It was none other than the controversial Autre Porte Technique Global, which claimed that it had huge collectibles from the DOTC.

Last March, the DOTC thus held a bidding for the six-month “emergency” maintenance contract, covering the rolling stock and the depot equipment, putting a budget of P130 million.

The department however declared it as a failed bidding, as it announced to the suffering riding public that it could only qualify one out of the three bidders.

The following month last April, the DOTC conducted the second bidding, but this time it added to the contract the upkeep of the signaling system for the entire 17 kilometer stretch of the relatively young 15-year old MRT.

Thus the DOTC put into the six-month budget another P19 million, precisely for the signaling system, raising the total to P149 million.

Surprise—after two months, today the DOTC awarding of the “emergency” contract is in for further delays—and of course more MRT breakdowns.

Word goes around that the DOTC just bungled the bidding for what the DOTC itself declared as an “emergency.”

One of the three bidders happens to be a group called Mosa-Inekon-Ekova. Yes, sir, something in the consortium’s name indeed sounds familiar.

“Inekon” is the same foreign company that figured in the alleged $30-million extortion attempt by DOTC officials in the purchase of MRT trains and cars from the Czech Republic.

Anyway, in the first bidding last March, the Mosa-Inekon-Ekova group submitted a bid of a little more than P128 million for the P130-million budgeted contract.

In the second bidding, which included the maintenance of the signaling system, budgeted at a higher P149 million, the same Mosa-Inekon-Ekova submitted a much lower bid of only P120 million.

To think, for the signaling system, the contractor would have to bring in the original French supplier called Bombardier, known to charge at least P2 million monthly retainer fee.

To top it all, the retainer fee would exclude the millions of pesos more that the contractor would have to pay for spare parts and additional equipment.

Question: Do you think that the much lower offer of Mosa-Inekon-Ekova could only be nuisance bid or it was designed to insure a “win” by some favored groups?

Consider for a moment that, according to insiders, the DOTC even overlooked the fact that the Mosa-Inekon-Ekova group failed to submit the complete documentary requirement.

But the ever-bungling DOTC disqualified another bidder, called Global EPCom, on exactly the same ground.

And that, ladies and gentlemen of the miserable riding public, was the urgency in this DOTC “emergency” for you: Nothing happened in the past months because of the usual favoritism.

***

Uh-oh … the country’s entire banana industry—meaning, together with its $1 billion yearly exports, P130 billion in investments, and some half a million jobs—must rise up to threats from what its members called “man-made” calamity.

Based on reports last week, the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) already labeled a proposed bill in the House of Representative as another one of those banana industry killers.

That was none other than House Bill 5161, introduced by Rep. Teddy Brawner Baguilat (Ifugao), which wanted all agribusiness venture agreements, the so-called AVAs, to seek the “new” approval from the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council.

As we all know, AVAs came about as a result of the 29-year-old agrarian reform program, called CARP, as business ventures between the companies and the workers in industrial plantations like the banana sector.

You know—instead of outright land distribution!

According to HB 5 161, all the existing AVAs in the banana industry would have to be reviewed by the PARC, or the presidential agrarian reform council, which was the supervisory body of the government for the CARP.

Or else … well, the proposed law said the AVAs would be void.

The PBGEA noted that the industry was already reeling from natural calamities, such as the strong typhoons in the past years and the current drought brought about by the El Niño phenomenon.

In a way, the banana industry could use a breather from man-made “calamities” in the form of onerous local ordinances and sweeping legislation that would only add uncertainties to the industry.

Now, the congressman from Ifugao even provided in his HB 5161 a lengthy discussion of the rationale for such a drastic measure, made even more threatening with the warning of “voiding” all the AVAs in the banana industry.

He used the example of the cooperative of workers in the Lapanday Foods in Davao, which had a “contract growing” AVA with the company, which in turn drove it truckload of debts.

Talk in the banana industry was that the Lapanday story would not apply to the whole industry, simply because the industry used different schemes for the AVAs, such as lease arrangements or joint ventures.

According to the PBGEA, other types of AVAs—or even other AVAs using the “contract growing” scheme—were doing fine, but the Baguilat bill lumped together all the AVAs as problematic, based on the sad experience of the cooperative in Lapanday.

PBGEA executive director Stephen Antig for instance noted the Baguilat bill would in effect allow the government to interfere in private transactions.

Really, only heaven knows what sorts of horror stories could arise from such government interference!

And we are not talking here of mere cumbersome rules and processes that were always the bane of investors in this country. We are talking of harassment and outright bribes.

Instead of more tedious rules, the industry said it would appreciate House bills seeking to provide support services to the CARP beneficiaries.

In effect, the Baguilat bill would overhaul the AVA system in the banana industry, thus interfering in what were supposedly sacred private contracts.

Under the bill, for instance, the beneficiary could just choose to cancel the AVA just like that—you know, when something untoward would happen in his life or something silly like that.

It in effect shields the beneficiaries, who already turned into both landowners and entrepreneurs under the AVA system, from all kinds of risks.

Here is a little known fact: The banana export industry has survived the last 44 years with little assistance from the government, thank you.