The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Dean dela Paz / The Next Page
What does a patently unconstitutional patronage system have to do with train fares? Normally, nothing. Until funds are malversed and immediately the disconnect disappears. In its place, anger seethes.
During the holidays just passed, while enjoying solitary thrills motoring through the sleepy towns south of the metropolis, we chanced upon a convoy of trucks packed with the fattest and pinkest pigs on their way to slaughterhouses in a one-way journey to table tops.
As humongous as these animals were, cramped and caged, they were not as monstrous as the images reality alluded to in the world of Philippine politics. The convoy reminded of a caravan of pork-barrel royalty. The resemblances were uncanny. The overpowering stench as we tailgated added multiple dimensions and convinced us that, on smell alone, these were government official doppelgängers.
The imagery of a pig railroad set a theme and what other allusions barreled in came naturally when one ponders the principal arguments against the recent railway fare hikes that burn within the news.
The government is hell-bent on increasing train transit fares, justifying the increase as long overdue. Against this convolute the collage of fat pigs, a rampaging railroad and the undying controversies of the pork-barrel issues founding the presidential Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
The juxtaposition not only filled in gaps, but the pig train fit was perfect.
The series of Metropolitan Rail Transit (MRT) mishaps compels a review of capital funding to bring the system to minimum safety levels. That would either mean increases in capitalization or fare hikes. Or both. We are not talking about expansion or upgrades. Simply, that the trains do not maim or kill us. We just want to get to point B from point A in one piece.
In this controversy, note how the untenable is railroaded. According to Benigno Aquino III, “Mula (unang) panahon pa, hindi naman ni Magellan pero noong, pagkatagal-tagal na (From the onset, not really from Magellan’s time but for the longest time)” the need to raise fares has been around.
He added, “The decision (to raise fares) is not about popularity, okay! I don’t want to be part of the problem.” He also added that he could not defer the increase and “pray to St. Jude that the trains would run safely until the end of my term.” The verbiage implies that the fare increase will fund safety features and physical improvements.
It won’t.
It is hollow argumentum non sequitur.
To understand, allow us to dissect the fare-hike impetus and see where Aquino’s DAP infestation crawled in, then, like cockroaches, disappeared behind the woodwork and, only recently, reappeared, resurrected as a fare hike.
The MRT was built under a Build, Lease and Transfer scheme, with a government-guaranteed return of 15 percent to its private contractor. To fulfill its guarantee, escalating costs that ate into the 15 percent were charged against the government. This led to effective subsidies. To accommodate, the government delayed and traded off requisite capital expenditures. As the cost-squeeze worsened, so did physical assets.
Aquino’s DAP made matters worse. Documents show that in 2012, without congressional approval, as much as P4.5 billion budgeted for railway improvements was spirited away through Aquino’s DAP and ended up as pet projects for Palace-allied politicians. Now the Palace says increased fares are needed?
The fare increase will simply pay a guaranteed P5-billion subsidy to private contractors, plus the 15-percent return to the MRT Corporation. It will not directly go to safety improvements, much less asset purchases.
Officials continue to lie and the stinking government pig train rampages on.