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Sen. Richard Gordon said Wednesday that the Senate must reopen its
inquiry into the $503-million NorthRail project from Caloocan City
to Clark in Pampanga, to determine whether it should still be
pursued and whether graft had indeed punctuated its signing.
Gordon made the call in the light of reports
that the China National Machinery and Equipment Corp. Group had
backed off from the NorthRail project and had reportedly threatened
to take legal action against the government for allegedly failing to
pay a cost overrun of $299 million.
He said that in the 13th Congress, the Senate
constituted itself as a committee of the whole and investigated the
NorthRail project.
“There has been no report. We should reopen it
so there would be a closure,” he said.
He said that $299 million is a huge amount and
if interests are included, there might be some doubts on whether the
project is worth pursuing.
Gordon cited the cost of relocating informal
settlers along railroad tracks as one of the main reasons for the
high cost of the project. The National Housing Authority reportedly
spent about P6 billion to relocate around 20,000 families from the
tracks. But the housing agency has said it needs another P2 billion
to finish the relocation of 19,000 more families in the Pampanga
side of Northrail.
“If we will be spending so much for
relocation, then we are in effect rewarding the squatters,” Gordon
said.
He said that many of these problems came about
because the former chairman of the North Luzon Railway Corp. kept on
signing papers without carefully studying them.
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon said that the government and
the legislature should study not only the financial aspects of the
project but its economic effects, or on the transport of goods and
people from Manila to some parts of Luzon and back.
Earlier, former Senate President Franklin Drilon
urged the government to terminate the NorthRail project and go after
the people responsible for negotiating and implementing what he
called “the greatest train robbery in history.”
Citing the poor implementation of the Northrail
project, Drilon said the Arroyo administration has already spent
P5.4 billion but “has nothing to show for it.”
-- Efren L. Danao
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