Busan Universal Rail Inc., the maintenance provider of MRT-3, is seeking an arbitration proceeding to resolve the dispute over its contract with the Department of Transportation.
Regional Trial Court of Quezon City Branch 105 judge Rosa Samson directed DOTr and Busan in an order dated October 13 to proceed with the arbitration proceedings as stipulated in the MRT3 contract.
Samson also ordered the DOTr and Busan to proceed with the arbitration proceedings before the Philippine Dispute Resolution Center Inc., an agency in charge of assisting and resolving contractual and legal disputes between government and private entities.
“We are calling on the DOTr to abide by the court order. We believe that at the end of the day, our actual performance and compliance with contractual obligations could help the DOTr see the light and avoid a protracted legal conflict,” Busan said in a statement.
It added that the contract for MRT-3 maintenance could not be unilaterally terminated because of temporary stoppages and on the subjective opinion on the company’s failure to “satisfactorily perform work obligations.”
The DOTr in January 2016 signed a P3.8-billion three-year contract with the joint venture of Busan Transportation Corp., Edison Development & Construction, Tramat Mercantile Inc., TMICorp. and Castan Corp. to do maintenance works on the rolling stock and signaling system, the most critical maintenance component of MRT 3.
The MRT3 maintenance provider has claimed it performed beyond its contractual obligations, met key performance indicators and delivered more than the required train availability to the system
Busan said it furnished the DOTr with documentary and technical evidence to show the design flaws and their impact on the performance of the trains. It also repeatedly reminded the DOTr about the completion of the rail replacement and that the DOTr Secretary Arturo Tugade instructed MRT to review loading protocols.
“As far as we know, that review did not happen”, BURI said.
Busan said the glitches were more reasonably due to design flaws, and not mainly maintenance issues. Through the years, the deterioration of the rails and passenger loading above the intended usage worsened the system’s condition and resulted in more glitches.
Even in 2000, when Sumitomo was maintaining the system in the MRT’s first year of operation, when the trains and rails were brand new and ridership was much less, the MRT-3 already logged 1,492 glitches.
Records showed that as of as of August 15, 2017, Busan’s operational fleet availability for MRT3 is 91.67 percent or 66 out of 72 cars, which is higher than LRT1’s 74.82 percent (102 of 139 cars) and LRT2’s 66.67 percent (48 of 72 cars).
The figure shows a dramatic rise from the fleet availability of 55 percent when Busan took over the maintenance of the MRT-3 on January 2016, despite the significant increase of ridership of about 30 percent from 2000 when maintenance was still being undertaken by Sumitomo.