Rail transit un-fa(ir) hike

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/16-22/2011



We noted in the Manila Times May 10 editorial on the impending MRT/LRT fare hike (entitled, “The hot MRT-LRT potato”) many inanities in the article’s reasoning and information.

To wit, the following were the claims: “The fact is that the government is losing a lot of money having the MRT and the LRT in its hands. It doesn’t want the public to stop using the two transit systems, so it must keep the ticket rates low enough.

Otherwise, the loss would even be bigger than the P7 to P8 billion spent annually to subsidize the fare for the two systems’ more than one million passengers every day.”

Subsidy to Investors
First of all, we heard a representative of the National Consumer Council of the Philippines (NCCP) say over a morning radio program that in their discussions with the MRT/LRT authorities where the financial books were present, it was perfectly clear to all that neither the MRT nor the LRT was losing money. They were just, at worst, breaking even.

What is actually causing the losses, they say, is the financial cost from borrowing. This is the first apparent misinformation that the Manila Times should correct.

Second, the MRT was supposed to have been set up with investors such as the Ayalas, Sobrepeñas, and Agustines. Their consortium, which set the terms and conditions for the MRT during Fidel V. Ramos’ time, specified very steep terms for their participation, such as a very high fare rate, maxing at P40 for the length of Taft to North EDSA back then, and a
minimum passenger load that was never reached under those expensive rates.

Hence, then Joseph Estrada had to bring them down drastically to a minimum of P9 and a maximum of P20, which led to commuters packing the MRT in 1999, thereby reducing government’s payment for the sovereign guarantee made by the previous regime as a “subsidy to the investors.”

In the Debt Trap
Let’s make this very clear: The commuting public has never been subsidized by government. The truth is actually the reverse: Commuters cum taxpayers are the ones who have subsidized the Ayalas, Sobrepeñas, and Agustines!

Here, I distinguish the MRT form the Mega Tren (the line on Aurora Blvd.) to avoid confusion. For that line, I recall that the sovereign guarantee (a practice Erap abhorred) was given by Gloria Arroyo to Maurice “Hank” Greenberg after EDSA II when the latter arrived to sign the loan.

As for the LRT line established during Marcos’ time, which had always run on a lower fare schedule than the MRT, its debt should have been paid long ago under the 25-year Aquino-FVR-Arroyo reign.

But, as they’ve always done in the past such as with the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant debt (which, according to the Freedom from Debt Coalition, has never really been paid off), I suspect that it, too, has been lumped with all the other debts.

Such are the obfuscations on our debt management which the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and financial managers, all invariably handmaidens of the international finance mafia, perpetuate to keep us in the debt trap.

The issue of the MRT/LRT/ Mega Tren fare hike involves broader issues that indict our country’s financial and economic policies, as well as the national political, financial, and business leaders in this conspiracy to deceive, defraud, and swindle the public.

Under Wraps
Mainstream media has been a party to this with its constant refusal to report things as they are and act only as megaphones of the oligarchs that own each of them.

Let’s take the relationship of vital issues against the interest of mainstream newspapers to cash in on a good opportunity to earn mega bucks.

The day after the Pacquiao fight, these were the headlines: “Lopsided Pacquiao win” (Inquirer); “Pacquiao too much for Mosley” (Malaya); “Pacquiao shames Mosley” (Manila Bulletin); “Pacquiao tears Mosley apart” (Manila Times); “Mighty Manny shames Shane” (Philippine Star). Notwithstanding the preponderance of boxing enthusiasts and sports analysts who complained about the lousy and unexciting fight, the mainstream dailies still chose to highlight a non-issue.

The only newspaper that put out the truly important headline that day was the Tribune, the other newspaper I write for. Its “Gov’t to spend not earn from MRT-LRT PPP bid” alerts the public to the P15 billion government will be paying to, instead of receiving from, the winner of the MRT/LRT PPP bid when it comes in June. Imagine that major a scandal being kept under wraps by obfuscating media!

OP-ED Reviews
Before we end, here’s my review of this week’s significant op-ed pieces, which to my mind are worthy of comment, either positively or negatively.

On May 9: Ben Diokno’s Understanding hunger, explaining the difference between moderate and severe hunger, and how the survey agencies have shown the worsening hunger incidence in the past 10 years under Arroyo (NEWS FLASH to Tiglao and Saludo; please review your figures); PhilStar’s editorial ‘Buying more time’, explaining the BSP’s latest interest rate hike (which I disagree with since rates should be reduced for productivity to bring down inflation); and Manila Times’ Osama’s fifth column? piece by a group calling itself the Philippine Center for Islam and Democracy (PCID), saying Malacañang is right to call on Muslim Filipinos not to hail Osama as a martyr but to view him as a terrorist (Whoa! Shouldn’t theyfirst ask themselves who killed 3 million in Vietnam , killed and maimed 1.6 million in Iraq, and 50,000 in Afghanistan to date? It’s the US , you dummkopfs!)

On May 10: Several newspapers’ feature of “Spreading the jihadi virus in Southeast Asia” by Isabel Escoda, which Juan Mercado of the Inquirer also spun, saying “Do all nay-sayers believe it would have been better to present OBL’s corpse to his followers or Saudi Arabia, his birth place, so shrines could have been built for him… ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish’ sums it up well. Unless we forgot about attacks in Nairobi, Madrid , Bali, London and Mumbai…” (Obviously Escoda is an ignoramus about the geopolitics of this world and the false flag attacks engineered by covert intelligence groups; but the fact is the US embalmed the corpses of Saddam Hussein’s murdered sons and showed them off to the world for four days. OBL’s is a case of no “corpus delicti” and “dead man tells no tales, a disappeared dead man tells even less” arrangement); John Nery in the Inquirer did something good in his “How the Osama raid, and Mosley, was spun” as it tried to understand how it all can just be media spin, and finally, there’s “doctor” Dante Ang’s “Bin Laden, not a holy warrior” spiel (Well, who asked him?).

(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “MRT/LRT un-fa(ir) hike; visit http://newkatipunero. blogspot.com for our articles)