DAVAO CITY, Philippines—A militant lawmaker urged on Tuesday Sen. Grace Poe, chairperson of the Senate Committee on public service, to make former President Benigno Aquino III accountable for the Metro Rail Transit-3 mess.
Anakpawis Rep. Ariel Casilao said that Poe should go beyond holding former Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) Secretary Joseph Abaya responsible on the P3.8 billion MRT deal mess, “instead lock on her target to the accountability of Aquino.”
“The MRT3 mess could be described briefly by the mix of Liberal Party men, PH Trams, Global APT, BURI is equivalent to multi-billion peso boot and daily mass hardship of more than a million commuters,” Casilao said in a statement.
Poe, who chairs the Senate committee on public services, has called a special Senate hearing to discuss the inefficient management and maintenance of MRT-3 as stated in Senate resolution No. 355. Part of the probe is to examine the new trains from Dalian, China which was bought for P3.8 billion during the term of then Department of Transportation and Communications Jun Abaya.
“The government should not tolerate the strong denial of Abaya under a facade of idiocy tagged with a price of at least P3.8 billion for the non-operating,” Casilao said.
The militant lawmaker said that from October 2012 to December 2015, the total contract costs for PH Trams and Global APT was more than P2 billion for the 38-month maintenance while the Busan Universal Rail, Inc. was contracted to do the maintenance for P3.81 billion.
“The combined irregularity-masked-as-idiocy by Aquino’s men has just charged the public with roughly P9.7 billion, thus, we dare Sen. Poe to get their obvious ringleader,” Casilao said.
He warned that the Duterte administration will likely encounter the same mess if it operates under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework.
“We had enough of this incessant pecadillos, that are brainchildren of corrupt government officials and profit-hungry private entities, it is long overdue to scrap this PPP mind-setting and messianic credence that only the private sector could deliver on this programs and projects,” Casilao said. (davaotoday.com)
