Causes of Problems Revealed

After the series of MRT accidents and reported malfunctions, it has prompted an inquiry at the Senate.

And at the Senate hearing on the frequent MRTbreakdowns, Sen. Chiz Escudero asked Undersecretary Jose Lotilla why the government has not sued Metro Rail Transit Corp. (MRTC) or MRT Holdings for defaulting on its duty to buy more trains when the present number has exceeded its original capacity.

Lotilla said the maintenance records were still with MRTC and the government was loath to file a case unless it had gathered sufficient evidence.

Metro Rail Transit Corp. (MRTC) or MRT Holdings is the owner of the trains.

Department of Transportation and Communications chief Jun Abaya and Fil-Estate and MRT Holdings Chair Roberto Sobrepeña gave their respective sides on the sorry state of the mass rail transit system MRT 3.

DoTC ignored 3 MRT proposals to buy more trains

Records show that the DoTC received three proposal in 2004, 2008 and 2010 to buy additional trains.

Sobrepeña revealed that MRTC tried four times to buy new trains for the mass rail system as early as 2004, but DOTC never acted on the proposal.

After Sumitomo Corp. as original maintenance contractor was terminated in 2012, what heppened.

...train problems arises.

Sumitomo designed, built and maintained the MRT3 system under the principle of a single point of responsibility which supposedly meant that the Japanese firm guaranteed 20 trains running at any given point in time.

In 2012, the DOTC awarded a P517 million MRT maintenance contract to a consortium led by a company called PH Trams.

The government terminated the contract with Sumitomo in 2012 and it was a big factor to the MRT sorry state

The DOTC effectively lost the single point of responsibility that has now led to the question who was at fault?

Repots revealed that thhe three PH Tram incorporators:

• Arturo Soriano,
• Wilson de Vera
• Mario de la Cruz,

They were allies of Vitangcol (Metro Rail Transit general manager Al Vitangcol III) Soriano is an uncle of Vitangcol’s wife who mysteriously got out of PH Trams just before the company he founded got a half a billion peso maintenance contract. 

Engineering issues

Secretary Abaya defended the contract termination... that Sumitomo had raised its price from $1.4 million to $2 million a month but refused to guarantee its work of maintaining the system.  

At the Senate hearing, the representative of Autre Porte Technique Global Inc.(current maintenance operator) argued that it should not be blamed for the MRT3’s defects because the transit system’s problems:

1. trains stopping in mid-track
2. losing communication with base due to radio traffic interference
3. running with doors open
4. smoke emitting from a train while it is running

That hey were not linked to maintenance but to engineering issues... that it fell on DOTC's part. It was DOTC who was violating the BLT Agreement. MRT Holdings is the owner of the train line through the Metro Rail Transit Corp., or MRTC, while MRT3-DOTC is the operator under a 25-year build-lease-transfer (BLT) agreement with the owners. Reports says that MRTC should be the one to sue the DOTC for numerous violations of the BLT agreement. It has sued the Philippine government in the arbitration court in Singapore for nonpayment of numerous obligations.