A party-list lawmaker on Monday urged the Department of Justice’s National Bureau of Investigation to conduct a thorough investigation into the circumstances behind the unauthorized replacement of the Vehicle Logic Units that were originally installed on the MRT 3 system.
Puwersa ng Bayaning Atleta Party-list Rep. Jericho Nograles said the fire that took place in one of the MRT 3 coaches several days ago apparently due to electrical glitch is a result not only of bad maintenance but also of incompatible components that were installed on the MRT 3 system.
Nograles, who made a series of expose on the anomalies behind the P3.8 billion maintenance deal between MRT 3 and Busan Universal Rail Inc., said these glitches and breakdowns on the MRT 3 system will continue to persist despite the termination of the contract because critical parts such as the original Vehicle Logic Units have been replaced with fake ones.
While it is commendable that the Department of Transportation under Secretary Arthur Tugade decided to terminate the contract of BURI and had blacklisted it from conducting other businesses with the agency, Nograles said the fake and unauthorized parts should be taken down and replaced with original parts.
The DOTr should also tap the DOJ to find out how and why only one out of the 73 MRT 3 cars is equipped with the original Bombardier VLU which serves as the “brain” and the primary automatic safety device for MRT 3 Light Rail Vehicles, he added.
The rest, Nograles said, were replaced with “chopsuey” and unauthorized parts.
“The VLU is a very important component of the LRV. The glitches on the MRT 3 including the fire that broke out in one of the coaches recently is a result of incompatible parts that were installed on the train system,” Nograles said.
“Whoever is responsible for removing the original parts and replacing them with fake ones should be held criminally liable. I think that that NBI should already step in and get into the bottom of this,” Nograles said.
Based on the documents obtained by Nograles, it showed that only car number 63 is still equipped with the proprietary VLU manufactured by the Canadian firm Bombardier Transportation Signal Ltd. which has been designed specially for MRT3.
Based on the official inventory conducted on all of the 73 MRT3 cars — except for car number 63 — all other 72 LRV units are equipped with either ABB, ABB-Daimler-Benz or Daimler Chrysler VLUs and not Bombardier.
Nograles said that equipping the MRT3 cars with different types of VLUs instead of the proprietary Bombardier VLUs could responsible in the constant MRT3 breakdowns and glitches as a mismatch of these safety devices s could cause interface problems on the entire system.
Nograles said that even more suspicious is the fact that none of the MRT3 officials, including its previous maintenance provider, can make a categorical explanation on why the Bombardier VLUs were taken down, when were they taken down and who made the order to take them down.
“This is a big mystery that the NBI should solve. There is something very sinister on this removal of the VLUs and the people behind it should be held criminally liable. If the Bombardier VLUs were defective, why didn’t they ask Bombardier to fix or replace them instead of installing fake parts?” Nograles said.
MRT3 maintenance was originally handled by the Japanese firm Sumitomo but when the Aquino administration took over, maintenance was taken over by PH -Trams-CB&T for six months, then by Global Epcom-Apt, followed by Global EpCom-SBI-CB&T.
