By Joann Villanueva (PNA)
MANILA — Full mobilization of the team tasked to oversee rehabilitation and upgrading of MRT3 will start January 2019 following the signing of the agreement for a 38.1-billion-yen loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Thursday.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III signed for the Philippine government while JICA senior vice president Yasushi Tanaka for the lender.
Transportation Undersecretary Timothy John Batan, in a briefing during the signing ceremony held at the Department of Finance (DOF) in Manila, said transition processes for this project is now ongoing.
“The interface with the Dalian trains is something that we are currently discussing in order to make sure that all the considerations have been addressed,” he said.
Reports have it that the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) has for several days now, been test running China-made Dalian trains, which were acquired in 2015.
Upgrading of MRT3 will take about 43 months, Batan said, with the first 26 months focused on the rehabilitation of the entire system.
“The balance is going to be used for the completion and the general overhaul of all the 72 trains,” he said.
“We need that additional time because as we’ve explained before we are going to keep operating, we are going to keep running while the rehabilitation is ongoing. Hence, the programming of the overhaul to the 43rd,” he added.
The DOF, in a statement, said rehabilitation of the 16.9-kilometer EDSA-located train system will cost around PHP21.96 billion, PHP18.76 billion of which will be funded by the official development assistance (ODA) loan from JICA while the balance of PHP3.19 billion will be funded locally.
Dominguez said the 40-year loan, with a 12-year grace period, has an annual interest rate of 0.10 percent for non-consulting services and 0.10 percent annually for consulting services.
“This is by every measure a very soft loan that will enable us to address a very pressing problem,” he said.
The Finance chief said cost of rehabilitation of MRT3 is higher now compared to earlier estimates that are “off.”
“I don’t think they have estimated the extent of the damage due to the neglect of the system in the last administration,” he added.
