It’s wrong if they do it, but not when it’s us

Ride at your own risk. For, the MRT-3 maintenance provider does not warranty passenger safety.

That’s the shocker at last Wednesday’s Senate inquiry on the commuter rail. And it belies Transport Sec. Joseph Emilio Abaya.

At first Abaya claimed that Global-APT consortium issues safety pledges. No, it doesn’t, businessman Robert Sobrepeña countered. He knows, for he’s with the private Metro Rail Transit Corp. (MRTC) that built and owns MRT-3.

Under the build-lease-transfer deal, the MRTC maintains the MRT-3, which the DOTC operates. Any subcontractor, like Global-APT, must submit to MRTC certificates of proper maintenance, along with safety assurances. That’s what Sumitomo Corp. of Japan did, as MRTC’s subcontractor in 2000-2012.

But then the DOTC appointed Global-APT in Sept. 2013-present. It does not give MRTC any maintenance report or safety warranty. So the latter also has nothing to show the DOTC. No servicer in its right mind would warranty passenger safety because DOTC overloads the trains, especially during peak hours.

The DOTC breaks the very conveyance rules it imposes on private buses, taxis, jeepneys, and shipping and airlines. Operators are duty-bound to convey passengers to their destinations. Not MRT-3. In case of breakdowns, operators must send backups, or else refund passengers. Not MRT-3. In accidents, operators must recompense passengers for injuries, and property loss or damage. Not MRT-3.

For the almost daily MRT-3 accidents and shutdowns Abaya at best only apologizes to injured and inconvenienced passengers. Press Sec. Herminio Coloma sneers that they take the bus if they can’t stand long lines under sun or rain and risking their lives.

A cracked track caused yesterday’s closure. The busted signaling system didn’t detect it. A train engineer saw it on time and braked. If not, the overloaded coaches could have derailed and fallen on the busy avenue below.

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It’s wrong if others do it, but not when it’s they. That Abad attitude scares their associates.

Like, budget impounding. Florencio Abad used to flay President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s habitual withholding of billion-peso chunks of Congress appropriations. That was in 2006-2010, after he jumped from GMA’s Cabinet to the Opposition. He egged Liberal lawmakers Noynoy Aquino and TG Guingona then to file bills against misappropriating.

But as Secretary of the Budget, Abad about-faced. Concocting the hated DAP (Disbursement Acceleration Program), he got P-Noy to impound P158 billion in Congress allocations in 2011-2012. He even had him reallot it to projects that Congress had nixed or never heard of.

When the Supreme Court illegalized the DAP, Abad had P-Noy threaten to have its powers clipped. It was an affront on the Tribunal. Yet Abad had howled when GMA forcibly installed Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2010. He even used the DAP to make Congress oust him.

It gets worse. His wife, Batanes Congresswoman Henedina Abad, took P169.3 million of the DAP — the sixth highest House recipient. As GMA oppositionists the Abads decried her nepotistic pouring of billions into her two sons’ congressional districts. Today Henedina claims to feel shy to ask her budget secretary-spouse for funds. Had she not been shy, could she have been No. 1 beneficiary?

And worse still. Henedina reportedly also got P892.5 million in congressional pork barrel, the PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) in 2010-2012. Other reps were entitled to only P70 million a year.

The huge amount went to the Abads’ province, with the smallest population, 18,000; least number of voters, 10,500; and tiniest land area. It wasn’t from shyness. Florencio justifies the wife’s lioness share in that Batanes got only P30 million when they were Opposition.

During the anti-Erap struggle, Henedina disdained the previous and sitting Speakers and Minority Leaders. For her, they were “trapos” (traditional politicos) unworthy of alliance with her “civil society.” Fixated only with pork and dynastic politics, she used to say. At the time, none of the four’s family members were in politics. Yet, Florencio is a son of former Batanes representatives.

Today Florencio and Henedina control trillion-peso government funds. He is budget secretary and she is vice chairman of the mighty House committee on (budget) appropriations.

Moreover, daughter Julia heads the Presidential Management Staff, which advices P-Noy on, among others, budget spending. Son Luis is chief of staff of Finance Sec. Cesar Purisima, the budget fundraiser.

Five nephews/nieces and two first cousins of Florencio and Henedina are also in the government. They see no wrong in that.

Government service is Florencio’s career. So much so that he can’t find gainful work outside it. He paid only P8,150 income tax, less than a state clerk’s, in the four years after leaving GMA’s Cabinet and before joining P-Noy’s.

Why? Because he earned only P63,000 in 2006, P53,000 in 2007, P42,000 in 2008, and P16,000 in 2009.

For that he was assessed income tax of P6,400 in 2006, P1,500 in 2007, P250 in 2008, and exempted in 2009. Jobless, he depended on honorariums from lawyering.

Fortune smiled on him in P-Noy’s Cabinet. In 2013 his net worth was P32 million.

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