Metro Manila commuters are more than disgruntled over the way the government is operating the country's three-railway system.
Each of the three railways running across Metro Manila have suffered stoppages and glitches that include faulty air-conditioners and leaking ceilings. Long queues of stranded passengers have become commonplace. Rail commuters are exasperated over the way the rail network is being managed by the state, and they are resigned to the government's ineptitude.
Repair works on the system are also slow, with the lack of replacement train cars compounding the misery of commuters. Worse, some train stations are being shut down as in the case of LRT2. The Light Rail Transit Authority early this month said three stations of LRT 2 along Aurora Boulevard were being shuttered for nine months after a fire hit the line.
The Commission on Audit, meanwhile, called the attention of Metro Rail Transit 3 following a decrease in the number of its passengers and income by 26 percent since the Department of Transportation took over the transit’s operation and management in the past four years.
The COA in a 2018 audit report noted that MRT 3’s passenger ridership and ticket sales dropped to their worst levels last year, when 13 out of the 24 train set were only operational on a daily basis.
In a four-year analysis of the train’s operations, COA noted a 26-percent decline in annual passenger ridership from 140.1 million in 2018 to 104.3 million in 2017. Income collections from ticket sales plunged 26 percent from P2.77 billion in 2017 to P2 billion in the same period.
COA attributed the “regressions” to the reduced number of train sets plying on the rail tracks “caused by the termination on Nov. 3, 2017 of the maintenance service contract of Busan Joint Venture and implemented by 183 Busan Universal Rail Inc.”
“It bears emphasis that the maintenance services of the MRT 3 system were taken over by the DoTr-MRT3 maintenance transition team thereafter,” COA added.
The state, or the LRTA, clearly is not competent to operate a complex rail network in Metro Manila. It should cede the operation and management of the three railway systems to private companies, which then will be accountable to the government. As things stand, the LRT and the Department of Transportation are not being rebuked for their inefficiency.
