PRESS RELEASE Office of ABAKADA Rep. Jonathan dela Cruz ABAYA SHOULD TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT MRT FARE INCREASE “Which is which, Sec. Abaya? You had better make up your mind. You can’t play with the lives of MRT commuters forever.” ABAKADA Rep. Jonathan dela Cruz raised this question to Transportation and Communications Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya following the Cabinet member’s admission that additional revenue from the fare hike for the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) 3 will go to the private owners of the train line. “He had better tell the truth once and for all.” Dela Cruz pointed out that in a news story in inquirer.net last Dec. 21, Abaya was quoted as saying that the MRT fare increase will result in P2 billion in savings that could be used to fund development projects and relief operations. “But now, Sec. Abaya is saying that the estimated P1 billion, no longer P2 billion, from the increase in MRT fare will go to the escrow account for the payment of the governments monthly dues to the MRT Corporation. “Ano ba ang tutoo at magkano ba talaga? Bakit biglang P1 bilyon na lang at hindi na P2? Isang linggo mahigit pa lamang ay naiba na agad ang mga pahayag ni Sec. Abaya. What gves?” Dela Cruz said Abaya should reveal whose idea was it in the first place to initially claim that revenues from MRT fare increases will go to projects, only to suddenly change it to the escrow account. “Is he trying to hide something? What happened these past few days? And talking about revenues, where are the earnings from non-passenger proceeds like the rent of stall owners at MRT stations?” Dela Cruz also said Abaya should explain his claim that the government’s monthly payment to the private owners of the MRT is short by some P600 million. “I’m sure he is aware that 80 percent of the government’s payments to the MRTC go to Land Bank. Kaya nasaan ang computation, ang mga papeles ng mga binayaran? Bakit lumaki ng ganun ang utang ng gobyerno?” By contradicting his own pronouncements in just more than a week, Dela Cruz said Abaya’s claims and assurances are now in doubt. “We are talking here of billions of pesos of hard-earned fare money of as many as half-a-million MRT commuters daily, and more importantly the risk they take everyday in riding the train line which experts have categorically declared as an accident waiting to happen. It would be nothing less than inhuman and immoral to deceive the commuters with contradictory statements to justify their payment for the corruption and incompetence of a conscience-less few/.” 30
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 03:36:52 +0000
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