Welcome MRT Bidders!

Welcome MRT Bidders! But apparently no bidders showed up for the bidding of the maintenance contract of the Metro Rail Transit 3 (MRT3) which is amounting to P2.2 billion. So, what had happened to this supposedly multi-billion bidding event?

“We moved the deadline in our desire for bidders to submit. But unfortunately, they did not. We will have to republish by December,” Transportation Undersecretary Jose Perpetuo M. Lotilla told reporters at the sidelines of a hearing at the House of Representatives.

The DoTC originally scheduled Oct. 17 for the submission and opening of bids for the MRT-3 maintenance contract, yet decided to reschedule the deadline on Tuesday, Oct. 28. However, no one from the five companies that bought bid documents filed their bids.

Bayan Muna Rep. Neri J. Colmenares said a reason could be that the contract price was not competitive for the bidders, and asked the DoTC of their plans to address the “urgent” problem. 

Responding to a suggestion to hike the contract price, Mr. Lotilla said: “That is a possibility. Maybe the approved budget for the contract might have to be increased, or we might have to reconfigure the risk profile to make it more attractive to bidders.”

With that case the contract of Autre Potre Technique Global Inc. (APT), which is MRT’s current maintenance provider, will be more likely extended until a new maintenance contract is awarded and having the current issues MRT3 had these past few weeks in terms of non-working couches and those instances that connotes commuter’s safety, I don’t think this work around will not be a good resolution.

Meanwhile, DOTC under Mar Roxas and then Jun Abaya were keeping excuses to get hold of the bidding way back 2012. And now, since there’s no bidders showed up, APT Global will be extending its contract. Is this a tactics of getting ahold of MRT 3? Due to delaying techniques of Jun Abaya he appointed PH Trans and APT Global as maintenance providers because of “lack of time” that’s why imposed their emergency power. So, Instead of this early aggressively promoting the presidential bid of Roxas, Secretary Abaya should focus more on addressing the problems besetting the MRT-LRT, such as the endless lines, computer glitches, non-working elevators and escalators, sardine-like coaches, accidents and many more.

Grrrr… I am a taxpayer and commuter and having a convenient MRT3 ride is what I only ask for the government. Besides, taxpayers and commuters are the one who really suffers and yet they don’t know where they hard-earned money go.