Everyone, Warmest Greetings!

A Message for President Aquino, Secretary Abaya

Open Letter to His Excellency Benigno Simeon Aquino III, 

President of the Philippines

and Honorable Joseph Emilio Abaya, Secretary

Department of Transportation and Communications

Dear President Aquino and Secretary Abaya:

Between 1989-1990, we began the advocacy for a Philippine safety agency that led to the passage of the Republic Act to create the NTSB - National Transportation Safety Board.

Shown below is the reconstruction of the briefing on the need to operationalize the National Transportation Safety Board. We revised the briefing over and over again. The updating of the voluminous data on accidents over land, to include actuarial and statistical computations of the probabilities of new accidents for extended, extrapolated periods, is not included since it would be too tasking for us and we do not have the resources nor are equipped any longer to undertake the job.

In the past, we were fortunate to be working with a foreign counterpart - the Harris Corporation Florida USA, a conglomerate with over 100 companies under its wings, that allowed us to opportunity to campaign for the privatization of the then Air Transportation Office's ATS (Air Traffic Service) as well as to push for the creation of the Philippines' transport safety agency.

- Original proponents for National Transport Safety Board 1994

Speeding and bad road structure

Yahoo: CCTV shows Don Mariano Transit speeding before tragedy

From yahoo.com, a video shows that the killer bus owned by the Don Mariano Transit that took 18 lives of its passengers was on a speeding frenzy prior to the accident, the report says.

The authorities reviewing the video say the bus was running at more than 100 kilometers per hour while at the point of the accident the speed limit was only 80 kilometers per hour.

Bad road design and structure in RP

A comment by "A Yahoo User" on the video sourced from ANC, says thus:

if one where to look closely at the footage, one can see that there was water in the path of the bus. What does this mean? I believe that the swerving may be the cause of hydroplaning.that and the speed of the bus i believe could be the main causes of the bus falling

By design, the coupling of speeding vehicles and bad road designs and structures that are common in poor or developing countries are a mortal combination. Compounded with dilapidated vehicle features and parts - that as claimed by the Skyway administration was evident in the Don Mariano Transit bus unit's totally bald tires with treads wholly worn away - the accident was bound to happen.

Safety on the Road

Recently, one of the buses of Don Mariano Transit figured in an accident where it is reported that 18 people died (see photo below).

Photo Credit: Manila Bulletin, December 16, 2013 by Michael Varcas

The attention of everyone, especially our government officials, is most earnestly called towards past proposals, suggestions, recommendations, encouragement, admonitions, for making transport safety a key concern of the public sector.

At this time, whether or not the Philippine Government under Pres. Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino the 3rd will listen to all these unsolicited advice will be the determinant of the future of public safety on the streets of the country, sea and ocean lanes, and the Philippine air ways.

One of the hundreds of proposals on transport safety became a certified legislation of the Ramos Administration in 1994-1995. It was an executive order draft that instead was forwarded with strong endorsement by former President Fidel V. Ramos to the two houses of Congress to be made into Law due to the inclusion of a component providing for changes in users' fees and charges in the transportation industry.

Because Congress holds the power of the purse and is the only one mandated to create taxes, fees and charges that will be levied upon the public, Congress was the last stop of the proposal for transport safety. Under the late Pres. Corazon Aquino, the same proposal was submitted to Malacanang because of the need for a Philippine council on Safety - or any kind of agency concerned with Safety in general.

If we look at our Philippine Government's structure, there is a myriad of government units, offices, bureaus on safety. From the Department of Labor, Health, National Defense, Transportation and Communications, and the list goes on and on. Despite this however, or because of too many duplicating functions, there is a seeming confusion as to who will be responsible for this and that concern on Safety.

Hundreds of world, international, regional Conventions, conferences and Workshops are held all over the the globe on Safety. The United Nations, cognizant of the value and importance of the universal concern of Safety, has elevated its status consistently from low to a very high Category under the UN Structure.

Therefore a single agency, unifying at least a wide array of safety concerns and lessening the duplication and conflicts of functions of too many agencies under the bureaucracy was proposed.

Out of these proposals, at least one was favored to become law: the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) Act that came about due to the strong wording by Malacanang stating that the proposed law was part of its certified legislative agenda for the period.

That certified priority legislation under the Ramos administration, became law. Secretary Vicente Rivera, past head of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) disclosed that former Congressman Manuel A. Roxas III and Senator Franklin D. Drilon were very instrumental in making the draft bill become law.

During her tenure in Malacanang, the late Philippine President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, appointed a lady by the name of Emilia Boncodin to the post of Director at the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

Eventually, Ms. Boncodin rose in the ranks and became Assistant Secretary, Undersecretary and yet was the source of complaints from too many sectors due to her insistence on ten percent (10%) commission or kickback for herself when it became her turn to be the one to release the payments to government service providers. When the supplier-contractors could not produce the cash, Ms. Boncodin will hold the payment hostage in return for a post-dated cheque or any other debt instrument, bank note that will ensure her 10% kickback will be paid.

However enormous and tremendous were the monies earned by this Boncodin in the past due to the immense, uncontrollable power of hostaging and illegal detention of the DBM, Boncodin refused and returned the enacted and signed (by President Ramos) Law creating the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to Congress.

Her reason was that DBM did not have Fifty Million Philippine Pesos (Php50-M) to cover the operationalization of the NTSB into a functional office. While amassing more than a few billions in office, Boncodin refused to fund Php50-M for the NTSB Law.

As if she was above everyone due to her powers of hostaging and detaining legally mandated payments to service providers this official showed she was also above the law by refusing to implement a law and execute the provisions stated therein - the main crux of which was to put a national transport safety board in operation.

Today, the Congress is doing some backtracking and it is not known if this act is to save the butt ugly face of the late Boncodin. An administration allied and a few other legislators filed the bill purporting to create a National Transportation Safety Board in July 2013. The Congress information appears like this:

CONGRESS BILL NO. HB00004

FULL TITLE : AN ACT CREATING A NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD, APPROPRIATING FUNDS THEREFOR AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES SHORT TITLE : National Transportation Safety Board Act BY CONGRESSMAN/WOMAN BIAZON, RODOLFO G. DATE FILED ON 2013-07-01 CO-AUTHORS: BICHARA, AL FRANCIS D. TAMBUNTING, GUS S. ORTEGA, FRANCIS EMMANUEL R. HERNANDEZ, FERDINAND L. DEL ROSARIO, ANTHONY G. REVILLA, JUAN JOHNNY R. REFERRAL ON 2013-07-23 TO THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REORGANIZATION SECONDARILY REFERRED TO THE COMMITTEE(S) ON TRANSPORTATION  SIGNIFICANCE: NATIONAL
DATE READ: 2013-07-23

Now our question is this: Why will a Representative at Congress file a new bill to create a law that has been passed before - in 1997-1998?

Why will Congress create an agency that has been created by said Law already promulgated in that period and was just refused by Boncodin and returned to Congress?

Perhaps the reason why some governments are damned is because the truth keeps getting twisted. The proper actions are not taken. Real respect for the life of the single Filipino appears to be the least concern of some administrations, for which reason they are doomed to be cussed and hated by the majority of the people.

What we need at this time, is for Congress to just exhort Malacanang and revoke the return transmittal of Boncodin, then implement the law that the dead former budget and management secretary threw back at the face of Congress and Senate and the Philippine President who signed the approved bill into Law.

Please, let us avoid more new mishaps, whether it be on land, sea, or air.

Thank you, Congress and Senate, if you will do that. And to the Congressman who re-filed the bill on NTSB, it is most dearly hoped and prayed that the honorable Congressman kindly please finds something better to do.

Advocacy articles on transport safety past by title and tagline:

Open Letter to Philippine President on Transport Safety

Resource Recovery Movement: tagline tansport, Boncodin

Archangel blog: tagline transport safety, Emilia Boncodin

Rhea Elizabeth Lou blog: tag safety, former Sec. Boncodin