Breaktime: Double or knotting
For more than two long years, the survey-smart Aquino (Part II) administration shilly-shallied on the most vital road projects in Metro Manila since the dawn of civilization: the two by-pass skyways connecting NLEx and SLEx.
Today, according to reports in this section, the cost of one of the projects already went up from about P20 billion to more than P25 billion, or an increase of about one-third. That is the project of Metro Pacific Tollway Development Corp., or MPTDC, a company in the MVP (Manuel V. Pangilinan) group that operates the NLEx. This company submitted the project to the DPWH way back in May 2010 as an “unsolicited proposal” under the BOT law. It wanted to use the railroad tracks of the government-owned Philippine National Railways (PNR) for the elevated connector road.
Under the MPTDC proposal, however, the DPWH—meaning, the government—would have to untie a lot of knots, such as forcing people to sell land to the government and even “air” rights over the land—all for the so-called RROW, or the “road right of way,” which the MPTDC would need for its “unsolicited” project.
Aside from that, the government would have to spend truckloads of money for the land. Already, reports said the increase in the cost of the RROW accounted for the biggest jump in the total cost after only two years of doing nothing in the project, since the RROW now amounts to an amazing P4.76 billion, from the original proposed amount of only P2.4 billion—or almost double.
Now, the project happens to be a toll road so that the sharp increase in the cost simply means that road users must pay for even higher tolls. Of course, the head of DPWH is none other than Secretary Rogelio “Babes” Singson, who used to be the top executive of Maynilad Water Services, which even at that time also belonged to the MVP group.
From what I gathered, anyway, aside from the existing PNR tracks, the major parts of the RROW would be the acquisition of additional land amounting to almost P3 billion. Not only that, the government would have to acquire the “air right” over certain parts of the route from the government outfit called Home Guarantee Corp. (HGC), which the Department of Finance would pay for out of our taxes.
Eventually the DOF would give the air right to DPWH, which, in turn, would give it to MPTDC for its “unsolicited” project.
Oh, and before I forget, for the sake of the guys down here in my barangay who are already reeling from the ever-increasing cost of living in the metropolis, the government also must spend more than P330 million to relocate the informal settlers along the railroad tracks.
To think, the DPWH had to claw its way toward the Palace approval of the MPTDC project since it would duplicate the original project of the SLEx operator known as Citra, which already partnered with the San Miguel conglomerate for its version of the connector skyway as a continuation of the one along the SLEx.
For the past two years, the DPWH under Singson has been questioning the SMC-Citra project, claiming that its “continuation” right already lapsed—or some other strange reasons. But other government departments, such as the DOTC, the DOJ, the Neda and the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) consistently affirmed the right of SMC-Citra to pursue its version of the SLEx-NLEx connecting skyway.
On the other hand, questions hounded the MPTDC proposal. For one, the government would have to pay for the RROW, the item now amounting to almost P5 billion, something that the SMC-Citra project did not have from the very beginning. That expense for RROW, according to the Neda, was nothing but a direct government subsidy and it would violate the rules of the BOT program under RA 6957, particularly since it was an “unsolicited proposal.”
You know—the government was not exactly salivating for the MPTDC project, in the first place, and so why would the government spend a single centavo for it? And so Singson and company went to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima for a legal opinion, hoping to reverse the Neda decision, claiming that the RROW payment was not really a direct subsidy because the government would still own the skyway. Well, under the BOT program, the government must own all the projects, in the first place. And all other BOT projects did not ask for a single centavo of government money.
Thus De Lima agreed with the Neda that the RROW cost was nothing but a direct government subsidy. Mysteriously, the DPWH head Singson was able to convince De Lima to change her mind. From what I gathered, Singson personally talked to De Lima, even intimating that the DOTC head at that time (now DILG Secretary Manual A. Roxas III) would not mind her changing the DOJ legal opinion in favor of MPTDC. De Lima entertained the move of MPTDC for a “reconsideration” of the earlier adverse legal opinion that could have eliminated the MPTDC project with, well, extreme prejudice.
From what I heard, De Lima even agreed to entertain the “motion for reconsideration,” although it came from a private company, because as a matter of practice, the DOF only welcomed such motion from another government outfit like the DPWH. Actually, the DPWH simply “endorsed” the letter of MPTDC to De Lima, who subsequently assumed that, because of the endorsement, the DPWH had already adopted the position of the company, which happened to be under the umbrella of the MVP group.
What do you know—De Lima indeed reversed herself, and all of a sudden, the cost of the RROW was no longer a direct government subsidy, although the government itself—and nobody else, much less the MPTDC—would still pay for it. The company simply argued that, in return for the government payment of hard cash for the RROW, the company would give the government “other fair, reasonable and beneficial terms.”
These terms were never specified. Not then. Not until now that the cost of the RROW has already gone up by almost 100 percent. Those terms, according to the opinion signed by De Lima, in response to the move of MPTDC for her to change her mind, were supposed to satisfy the rule called “valuable consideration,” meaning, that the government must get something in return for its cash outlay for any BOT project. And what should be the “valuable consideration”? Well, unfortunately, nobody knows until now. Judging the DOJ as lacking the expertise on the matter, De Lima left it all to the DPWH head, none other than Singson, to determine what exactly that thing called “valuable consideration” would be.
It seems that, to continue his push for the MPTDC “unsolicited” project, Singson has some more knots to untangle.
