FILE PHOTO: Cesar Chavez. INQUIRER FILES
MANILA, Philippines — Eighty of the 120 light rail cars purchased in 2017 cannot be used in the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1) due to water leaks.
A Department of Transportation (DOTr) official admitted this before legislators on Thursday, as the House committee on transportation held a conference on the government’s railway projects.
DOTr Undersecretary for Railways Cesar Chavez said the Philippine government procured the light rail vehicles (LRVs) in 2017 in a bid to increase train capacity amid the planned LRT-1 extension project from Baclaran to Cavite.
The LRVs were purchased from Mitsubishi Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S.A. (CAF) and delivered to the country in 2021.
All the LRVs procured for LRT-1 cost around P6 billion, Chavez said.
“The government bought this from Mitsubishi CAF, a Spanish company, in 2017. But when they reached the country, we cannot use 80 of them because of water leaks. In other words, we cannot use that because once it is raining, water may reach the inside of the cars,” according to the DOTr official.
Chavez said they asked Mitsubishi CAF to rectify the problem and follow the original procurement plan.
He also said that no technical team from the Philippines were able to personally check the train cars prior to delivery because of restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic,
“What we did is to ask them to submit their rectification plan to follow what was in the contract. This happened – I would just add the context – this happened during the pandemic when the government cannot send people to do the pamahalaan para sa factory acceptance test,” Chavez said.
“You know this, Mr. Chair, that before the trains are delivered to us, there should be a technical team who would go there to check. That was our experience when I was the deputy administrator of LRT during the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration,” he added.
When asked if he thinks there was anything wrong with the procurement of the LRVs, Chavez answered in the affirmative.
He said that if he were in-charge of its purchase, he would have called for the suspension of the delivery until someone from the Philippine government can personally inspect the LRVs.
“There is something wrong. One, the DOTr waived its right to inspect but I can also understand, it’s the pandemic,” Chavez said.
“There is something wrong, there was something wrong in the procurement. Before accepting, before even allowing them to deliver, if they cannot at that time decide whether the 80 trains was compliant, they should have at least suspended the delivery, dapat sinuspend muna kung hindi mai-inspect (they should have suspended it if they cannot inspect),” he added.
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The bidding for the LRVs that Chavez talked about started in 2015, and was finalized in 2017.
READ: Gov’t opens bidding for 120 LRT-1 trains
The funds used to buy the 120 LRVs came from a loan provided by the Japan International Cooperation Agency while competitive bidding was done to select the train provider.
READ: DOTC to procure 120 brand new trains for LRT-1