Old dogs, old tricks

It is indeed unfortunate that the first order of business for newly appointed Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon is to fix problems created by his predecessors.

His marching orders from the President are to enhance physical connectivity and make life easier for the commuting public. But before Dizon can accomplish that, he probably needs to undo or redo a lot of things at the department.

Take the case of the common station project that is supposed to link the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1, Metro Rail Transit or MRT Line 3, as well as the still-under-construction MRT Line 7 and Metro Manila Subway.

The project features an intermodal integrated system that will allow departing passengers of the common station to catch buses, jeepneys and taxis. It’s supposed to feature a 13,700-square meter concourse area that can accommodate 500,000 passengers daily.

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) announced last Thursday that it has fired the contractor of the Unified Grand Central Station (UGCS) – the consortium BF Corp. and Foresight Development and Surveying Co. – due to excessive delays. BF Corp. is a construction company owned by former MMDA chairman and Marikina mayor Bayani Fernando who died in 2023.

According to Dizon, the DOTr’s legal team is already finalizing the termination of its contract with the consortium, which may even be slapped with penalties for failing to honor the agreement.

He emphasized that the delays in the project’s implementation are unacceptable. The contract between DOTr and BFC-FDSC was signed in 2019.

After terminating the contract, Dizon said that the department is now seeking options under the Government Procurement Act or the Public-Private Partnership Code.

Even before 2019, the railway common station project had already been stuck in limbo for nearly eight years due to a dispute between SM North EDSA of the Sy family and Trinoma of Ayala over the location.

Last Tuesday, Dizon told this writer that “we are in the process of terminating the BF contract so we can move on and finish the project.”

When asked whether a new bidding will be conducted, he said that they are looking at options that will allow the project to be finished immediately.

“Iniwan na po ang contract since last year. We are working on the contract termination with our legal team at the department. But we have to make the call now,” he said in a text message.

Dizon added that the construction has to end as it has become a major inconvenience for motorists and pedestrians. He said that because of the many obstructions and barriers from the construction site which has been left idle and with some of the metal materials scattered and rusting, commuters and pedestrians have to take a long detour and squeeze through crowded areas.

The common station project at the junction of EDSA and North Avenue was supposed to be completed in 2021 but has been pushed back to 2028.

Back in 2018, then DOTr chief Arthur Tugade said that the UGCS would be finished by 2022 but the pandemic, other technical and right-of-way problems, among others, caused serious delays in its implementation.

Transportation experts, however, recommend that before hiring another contractor, the DOTr needs to address many design flaws.

First, the use of an all-steel viaduct structure poses several concerns regarding the safety and viability of the design, including extreme noise, lack of design integrity and safety as an all-steel design is not commonly used due to stability issues, signaling interference, among others.

Second, they pointed out that if one looks at the completed portions of Area A, it can be clearly seen that the LRT Line 1 is floating and has no structure to connect it to the common station. Why did they begin construction when no plans have been drawn to connect the line to the common station?

Third, there’s the improper installation of the turnout, which having no solid base could result in derailment. Experts explain that heavy haul applications require complex solutions to handle high speeds, heavy axle loads and short train intervals which the contractor seemed incapable of providing or delivering.

At the DOTr, there was a recent overhaul in management resulting in the replacement of five undersecretaries and two assistant secretaries, among others. Surprisingly, Undersecretary Timothy Batan was retained to head the railways group.

As undersecretary for railway during the Duterte administration, Batan was tasked to implement the common station project. With Batan still heading railways now, there are fears the project may still not be completed.

Also, if the new leadership insists on moving forward with the current design and set-up, the UGCS would only end up as a disaster waiting to happen because of the many design flaws.

The commuting public deserves much better. Sure, the President‘s marching orders were to enhance physical connectivity and make life easier for the commuting public. That is of course, without sacrificing safety and without putting the lives of our passengers at risk.

Many of those rehired by Dizon were former DOTr officials who served under secretary Tugade. According to Dizon, he has little time to learn the ropes of the department and would need all the help he can get in the last three years of the administration.

Unfortunately, some of those rehired or retained were said to be responsible for the current problems being faced by our transport system, not to mention that they did not do anything when they were in office to fix these problems. Won’t rehiring or retaining them defeat the purpose of overhauling the department?

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