CARDINAL Pablo Virgilio “Ambo” David’s recent post, titled “Enough of this yearly NLEX ordeal,” summed up the mounting public outrage over the fundamental failure of the Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC), the Northern Luzon Expressway’s operator, to fulfill its mandate to operate an all-weather expressway. As the holder of a government-granted franchise with the authority to impose toll fees and amass profits, then enrich its shareholders — which, by themselves, are extraordinary privileges that are state-granted — what, in turn, is required of the MPTC is very basic: guarantee efficient travel within the toll road’s jurisdiction.
Toll road operations is basically a cash cow for the franchisee. The government, by failing spectacularly to maintain alternative public roads that leave motorists with no other option but to use toll roads, has been enhancing the value of their operators. A slew of acronyms — NLEx, Scetex, Cavitex, etc. — have emerged from the government’s questionable decision to outsource land mobility to toll road operators, then mess up with the upkeep of major public roads, which effectively makes toll roads the better option. Proof: the decrepit state of Luzon’s Maharlika Highway. Was this policy deliberate? Was the failure to develop an efficient rail system also part of a policy to enhance the value of toll roads and their corporate operators? There is one more addition to the over-the-top privileges granted by the government to a toll road operator. Vested with an escalation cause in its franchise, the operator can periodically hike toll fees after perfunctory — and often dubious — public hearings. The Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) has been a mummified clearing house for hiked toll fees, instead of acting as a guardrail against unjust toll fee increases.
And would former finance man-turned-public interest crusader Marcelo Tecson do a primer on the toll road operators and their cash cows? The public duty of the toll road operator granted extraordinary privileges to make money was clearly laid out by Cardinal Ambo in his aforementioned post: We pay the toll, we have the right to safe roads. The dying days of August and the first few days of this month proved that cash cow NLEx has miserably failed to fulfill its basic mandate of making traveling on its roads safe and efficient. The Pampanga-born Kalookan bishop had to go through a five-hour ordeal before clearing the flooded portion of the NLEx at the San Simon area.
And he asked us collectively to imagine this: What about the people with medical conditions who went through the same ordeal? I added this: What about a diabetic senior citizen who needs regular bathroom stops while traveling? Stories of senior citizens with diapers soiled from the constant peeing while traveling at San Simon at about the same time Cardinal Ambo was traversing that same area had been posted on social media.
No public outrage would have been triggered if the August-September monsoon-induced floods that crippled travel and caused massive public suffering at the San Simon portion of the NLEx were totally unexpected.
The flooding “was not unforeseen,” said Cardinal Ambo, adding that “San Simon has been repeatedly flooded during the rainy season.” Yet, a giant corporation failed to take preemptive steps to, at the very least, prepare for the rainy season and prevent the San Simon part from becoming a literal waterworld. The NLEx cared about the toll fees, not the efficient-public-service part of its franchise.
The NLEx operator not only failed to implement “permanent engineering solutions” to prevent the San Simon catastrophe. Even the basic warning signs that would have warned motorists entering the expressway were “inadequate,” Cardinal Ambo said.
Articulating the public sentiment on the MPTC’s monumental incompetence, Cardinal Ambo said the minimum the tollway operator could do was to “properly maintain a tollway despite the weather.” Especially with a recurring problem that has massively inconvenienced motorists during the rainy season.
He also called on the motorists who experienced the same ordeal to explore the possibility of taking legal action against the toll road operator. This can take the form of a class suit against the MPTC. Collecting tens of thousands — or even hundreds of thousands — of signatures to back up the suit should be quick, given the massive suffering of the motorists and commuters who went through the same ordeal as Cardinal Ambo did.
It is about time to challenge corporate malfeasance and the enshittification of services carried out by corporate giants such as the MPTC that are vested with cozy state-granted franchises. The class suit should also lay bare the fact the TRB, which has the mandate to rein in the abuses of toll road operators, has been an enabler of those abuses.
No, going to Malacañang is useless. Of all the country’s post-martial law presidents, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is the most pro-business. He fast-tracked the implementation of the law that cut down corporate income taxes (CIT) to a rock-bottom 20 percent that was originally passed under his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who was another pro-business president. The CIT is 20 percent; the tax on wages is 25 percent.
President Marcos, borrowing a phrase from the great journalist Molly Ivins, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate Philippines.