Highway Robbery

The Manila North Tollways Corporation (MNTC) which is primarily owned by the Lopez family of Iloilo, is set to take over the operations of the 82 kilometer North Luzon Expressway this coming February. This would mean a toll fee increase that would be more than 500 % from the current rates. Highway robbery… legalized.

Under the MNTC toll scheme, Class 1 vehicles consisting of cars and jeeps will pay a flat fee of P42 for destinations between Balintawak and Marilao; and P200 for the entire stretch of the expressway. This amount takes into account inflation and foreign exchange rates.

What they did not indicate in their computation is the amount they spent paying off Government officials since the Ramos administration in order to get this project. It is also obvious that they are now spending a lot of money for PR purposes to basically tell the people that; hey you are all screwed once we take over.

Another thing that really shows their greed is the idea to impose a flat rate from Balintawak to Marilao in Bulacan. This is in contrast with the current practice of charging on a per kilometer basis. I live in Valenzuela and I think it is simply wrong to charge us a flat rate when we will only use a shorter portion of the expressway. It is obvious that they are charging this flat rate because they want to quickly recover their investments.

Now I never had anything against the idea of private sector participation in such things that used to be the sole domain of the Government. But the idea that the whole repair of the highway costs around P18 Billion is simply absurd. There was already an existing highway and up until the point wherein the Lopez group expressed interest in taking over it, everything was going relatively well.

Since the Philippine National Construction Corporation would become a partner it lost all incentive to do its job and maintain the highway. Neglecting it would justify the move to privatize it. The very people who were responsible for making sure that the PNCC did its job and also the same people who negotiated with the Lopez group are now top officials of the MNTC. Can you say conflict of interests?

One of the major reasons for the exorbitant toll fees is the fact the whole project was primarily financed by foreign borrowing. This happened during the boom years of the Ramos administration when the Peso was strong and it seemed like a good idea to borrow from foreign lenders. Then the Asian financial crisis happened and now they are buried deep in debt. It is obvious that Lopez family really did not have the money to undertake this project in the first place and they had to borrow heavily to get it done. To me it doesn’t make sense for the people to pay for their miscalculations and business setbacks, this is obviously disadvantageous for the Filipino people. Can you spell PIATCO in four letters?

The Lopez family will probably have their way because everybody in government is afraid of their flagship company, ABS CBN. We should remember that this is also the same family who owns MERALCO, the company found guilty of overpricing and was thus compelled by the Supreme Court to reimburse its customers. This is also the same group who owns the ailing Maynilad and Bayantel, both also victims of the currency crunch caused by the Asian financial crises and both passed on to their customers the cost of these bad business decisions. They should have been jailed for the massive overpricing perpetrated by MERALCO but instead the people in Government gave them another venue to steal from the people.

These are the times when I feel like wearing a Che Guevarra shirt and a Mao cap and yell out for revolution, in the hopes of ridding this country of these oligarchs and corrupt officials who are sucking the life out of us.