Isn’t the LP ashamed of its president Abaya?

His department has become the flagship of corruption and incompetence, an ignoble legacy for the 70-year-old party.

The ruling Liberal Party knows it. Millions of Filipinos who experience efficient land, sea, and air travel abroad invariably compare them with shoddy ones back home. Simple Google-searches of any transport department project consequently turn up scams and slip-ups. World news pointedly reports the Philippines to have fallen behind neighbors in transport facilities and transparent governance. What must LP members, whose president is Transport Secretary Joseph Abaya, be thinking?

The transport department under Abaya has become the flagship of corruption and ineptitude. Every sub-office is embroiled in rackets, its biddings rigged, contracts spiked with onerous provisos, and projects delayed by blunders.

A graduate of the US Naval Academy, Abaya also is a mechanical engineer and lawyer. So much for good schools and double majors. In his Cabinet post he seems to be in above his head.

Among Abaya’s messes in air transport:

• Runways at Manila International Airport (MIA) remain congested. He can’t get the Cabinet to decide whether to pave additional runways or relocate the MIA altogether. That’s because of his personal political interest. Despite a private firm’s offer to build a new airport nearby at no cost to government, he wants the transfer miles away in his traffic-snarled congressional district, where massive land reclamation would be needed. The runway clogging not only is turning away foreign investors, conventioneers, and tourists, but also costing passengers and airlines billions of pesos daily in man-hour and opportunity losses.

• Construction has begun on two MIA rapid-exit taxiways at a cost of P300 million. The past admin had planned to build four, for only P200 million.

• It’s not only the “Tanim Bala” that departing passengers need to beware of at the MIA security x-ray checks. Crooked baggage inspectors also plant narcotics, for shakedown. At night, with foreign exchange shops closed, airport policemen prey on arriving passengers in need of local cash. The cops exact extortionate rates by virtue of their uniform. They also own the exclusive airport taxis outside, manned by abusive cabbies.

• Three years since he took office, Abaya has yet to complete the last three percent of the construction of MIA’s Terminal-3. At Cebu International Airport, erection of a new passenger terminal finally has begun after nine months’ delay. Abaya’s favorite U-Secs initially had favored an inferior bidder, until bashed in court and the media.

It gets worse in sea transport:

• The Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) licenses rusty old ships, and the Coast Guard clears them to sail even if unsafe. A rickety, wooden and thus should have been banned interisland ferry recently capsized. The crew sloppily had loaded hundreds of heavy sacks of rice and cement on the top deck, and humans below, naturally making it unstable in rough waters. Toll: over 60 dead and missing. The MARINA and Coast Guard were quick to hold the owner liable for multiple murder, but absolved the officials who certified the ship seaworthy to begin with.

• For bribes, the MARINA also licenses ships whose Plimsoll marks have been moved higher up the hull than the shipbuilders designed them to be. It’s obviously so the owners can load more passengers and cargo than the vessel safely can transport. The usual MARINA alibi for allowing the crime is that the ships would ply only short interisland routes. They do only at the start, but then – through more bribes – acquire longer regional routes.

• The country’s 400,000 seafarers are in danger of blacklisting by the European Union. The Philippines has flunked since 2013 two EU audits: on maritime education, training, and competency; and in the seaman certification system. Nothing has been done to correct the faults.

Abaya is most notorious in land transport:

• His vehicle license plate-maker is an unqualified partnership of a Filipino blacklisted from government contracting for forgery, and an undercapitalized Dutch. That was why they couldn’t produce any plates until Abaya advanced them P380 million. That advance was in fact the entire Congress allocation for the project, yet Abaya’s total contract cost is ten times more, P3.85 billion, therefore illegal for exceeding Congress’ budget. Eased out earlier during the rigged bidding were five fully qualified yet lower charging Europeans. The plates are of inferior metal that crumple in floodwaters.

• The Philippine National Railways replaced with substandard wood the railroad ties in the Southern Tagalog-Bicol stretch. The metal connectors on the Manila-Calamba segment easily can be detached and stolen. Result of both: serious derailments and months-long operation stoppages.

• Construction of a common commuter railway station for the LRT-1, MRT-3, and future MRT-7 and -9 has been delayed for two years. Reason: Abaya arbitrarily changed the site from the original frontage of one mall to the back of a competitor whom he appears to favor.

• Unifying the LRT-1, LRT-2, and MRT-3 ticketing system also has been delayed for a year. Reason: Abaya wants to grant the contract to the favored mall owner despite the superior bid of the disfavored one.

• LRT-1 and -2 are deteriorating under Abaya’s chosen administrator. Breakdowns and accidents are becoming frequent. Despite multibillion-peso annual maintenance budgets, the train roofs leak under the rain.

• The MRT-3 is Abaya’s most milked cow. He has thrown and is throwing P10.07 billion into maintenance and new coaches, all at terms disadvantageous to the state. He began by giving away P1.82 billion over three years to two successive maintenance contracts of an LP fundraiser, who did no real upkeep.

• With the railway run to the ground, he now is negotiating behind closed doors with an undisclosed party a hefty P4.25 billion MRT-3 rehab. The rehab would include maintenance service and parts for three years, overhaul of the 54 remaining of 73 original coaches, total replacement of the signaling system, and other upkeep works. His alibi for unlawful secret contracting is that it’s an unforeseen emergency; yet the projects were presented for Congress funding as far back as 2013 and 2014.

• While the secret talks for the P4.25-billion deal are going on, he is purchasing some of the very same materials. Thus wasted in duplication are P160 million for a rail grinder that the prospective contractor must provide under the three-year rehab; and P54 million to upgrade the old signaling that he would then replace for P900 million.

• Early in his tenure Abaya contracted for P3.8 billion an unqualified Chinese factory to fabricate 48 new engine-equipped coaches. The first prototype or “fully functional sample” that arrived last Aug. had no engine; hence, non-functional. Abaya was forced to admit that he is to buy separate traction motors from Germany. In effect, with no engine, he let the Chinese violate the contract terms to test-run the unit for 5,000 km under specified low and high speeds, slopes, and curves, with periodic checks of the bogie wheels, automatic brakes and doors, and electrical, electronic, and mechanical assemblies.

What self-respecting LP member would run for reelection this 2016 with such a president’s horrible track record?

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