LRT deal, next to undergo review -Duterte

The President of the Republic of the Philippines will not stop after the review of the water agreement with the two water giant, which he calls as “onerous” contracts which put the government at a disadvantage.

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte sought the review of the state run Light Rail Transit Manila Corporation (LRTMC) after the same oligarchs (Fernando Zobel de Ayala and Manuel V. Pangilinan) that are involved in the water distribution agreements have key roles in its day to day operations.

Duterte slammed again the two water concessionaires – Ayala led Manila Water and Manuel Pangilinan led Maynilad, for the onerous contracts with the government.

(photo credit to owner)

Apparently, the LRMC is a consortium of the Ayala-led AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., Pangilinan-owned Metro Pacific Investments Corp., and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) Pte. Ltd.

During a speaking engagement by the President in Davao, he vowed to go after Ayala and Pangilinan because they have had enough.

“Karami na nilang pera, sobra-sobra na. Getting most of the contract, LRT. Merong -- silipin ko. Meron man pala sila sa LRT (They have a lot of money. That’s too much. They are getting most of the contracts, including one concerning LRT operations. They are also controlling it),” the President said. “Marami ‘yan silang pinasukan sa gobyerno pero (They have entered many deals with the government but) this one (water agreement) is really the biggest rip-off of all. And that contract was never shown to the Filipino people.”

Last December 5, 2019 the Chief Executive has ordered the review of numerous existing government contracts with private firms to make sure that these are advantageous to the Filipino people, this was brought about by the controversy following the “onerous” water deals with  Manila Water and Maynilad.

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Report from PNA