The Governmet Wants to Take Over MRT 3

The government buying out the Metro Manila Rail Transit line 3 (MRT) because they want to take over it in the 3^rd quarter of this year. They already ignored their 1999 BLT agreement which stated that they allowed the MRT Corp. (MRTC) to control the EDSA rail line. This private company has also a right to choose any contractor for the train development. The government has chosen the lone bidder, which is the Dalian Automotive & Rolling Stock Co. This company serves as their supplier to the equipments they need.

The government is very confident that they solve any problem about this issue although the MRTC didn’t favor with their plan. They are the one who developed the MRT 3, then the government thrown away them. They already filed a cased against the government in attribution court in Singapore. But the government not minding this; they explained that everything will be alright because some of the board members of MRTC are also people from the government.

Department of Transportation and Communication Secretary Joseph Abaya said that they will buy 48 new railway coaches. This will be added to their 72 coaches. So, it has a total of 120 coaches, but some of it was not functioning anymore. Secretary Abaya was very happy because these coaches have great benefits to the commuters. As what we already knew, MRT is overcrowding. MRT is loading 600,000- 700,000 thousand passengers every day.

This time, the action of the government is very rare because we always hear from them that they are planning to privatize some of the government assets. Their reason they want to improve the system or services and they can’t handle it anymore. So, they need the assistance of the private sectors. Aside from that, they don’t need to release funds for the operation. But now, they want to take over MRT? Are they sure that they can handle it properly? How they can improve the train system in our country? Have they already concrete plan for this? This take over cost 56 billion pesos and they will get it to 2015 national budget. Let us hope that they can use the money wisely or else the Filipino people could suffer if their system doesn’t become successful. Let us hope also that there is no personal interest behind this buy out.