SC orders Abaya and others to comment on plea vs. LRT1 contract

The tribunal sitting in full court on Monday gave Abaya and other respondents 10 days to submit their comments, SC spokesman Theodore Te said in a briefing on Monday.

 

"The Court, acting on the Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition with application for injunctive reliefs dated November 12, 2015 seeking to declare the concession agreement in relation to the Manila LRT 1 Extension Operations and Maintenance Project and the Schedules unconstitutional, required, without necessarily giving due course, respondents to comment on the petition and the application within ten (10) days from notice," said Te.

 

Also named respondents in the case were LRTA administrator Honorito Chaneco and winning bidder LRMC.

 

In a 67-page plea, the petitioners said the concession is "grossly disadvantageous to the government" and should be declared invalid for it did not comply with provisions of the Constitution and other existing laws.

 

Citing Section 28, Artiicle II of the 1987 Constitution, they claimed that the DOTC, LRTA and LRMC violated the right of the people to information on matters of public interest. 

 

The petitioners said no public consultations were conducted before the agreement was signed. They noted the bidding initially conducted in 2013 was declared a failure, resulting in negotiations that “that were not fully disclosed to the public.”

 

The negotiations supposedly happened behind closed-door, with the public relying solely on intermittent news reports that does not include the pertinent details of the concession.

 

The agreement covers the privatization of the current LRT Line 1, its operations and maintenance as well as the construction and extension of the existing LRT Line 1 from 20.7 kilometers to 32.4 kilometers.

 

The petition was filed by the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares, commuter group Train Riders Network (TREN), COURAGE chair Ferdinand Gaite, RILES convenor Sammy Malunes, Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) employee Ma. Kristina Cassion and scientist group AGHAM represented by its secretary general Feny Cosico.

 

The petitioners criticized the agreement as one sided. In effect, the concessionaire was "given... a risk-free revenue contract," with the government shouldering all the financial risks while guaranteeing profit for the consortium.

 

They said the concession led to an increase in MRT and LRT fares without the required public hearing in violation of Section 16 of the Public Service Law.

 

The private consortium was given a guaranteed fare increase every two years, and if it failed to collect such fare increase the government would shoulder  the deficit, according to the petition.

 

With the government shouldering all financial risks for the project violates the Build Operate Transfer Law, which limits government financial exposure to only 50 percent of the project cost, the petitioners noted.

 

The implementation of the concession also violates the right of LRTA employees to security of tenure, which is guaranteed under the Philippine Constitution and labor laws, they said. – VS, GMA News