Reflecting on the NLEX bridge debacle
Over the weekend, colleagues who went to Clark International Speedway to watch the opening round of the Toyota Gazoo Racing Philippines Vios Cup were traumatized by an punishing drive to Clark that took almost four hours and roughly the same amount of time heading home because of the chaos created by the damaged Marilao bridge.
The most obvious question is, who is at fault? It is obviously the truck driver who was driving an over-the-height-limit vehicle. The bridge was damaged by a Bataan-bound 18-wheeler truck that had a height of 4.9 meters, exceeding the expressway’s 4.2-meter vertical clearance limit. The truck illegally used a non-truck lane to bypass height restrictions and damaged two girders of the Marilao interchange bridge.
The NLEX Corporation, the toll operators for NLEX, have filed charges of reckless imprudence resulting in damage to property against the driver and the owners of the truck.
The Toll Regulatory Board, on the other hand, wants to penalize NLEX for negligence that allowed the truck to bypass the necessary checkpoints.
In the meantime, DOTr Secretary Vince Perez has asked NLEX to grant a toll holiday while the Marilao Bridge is under repair as it is causing sever traffic jams stretching as far back as 15 kilometers.
But I feel the real issue here is who will pay compensate the lost money to business and the economy due to inefficiencies caused by the monstrous traffic jams, reparation for people’s wasted time away from families, restitution to hindrances done to emergency vehicles (ambulances), the increased wear and tear on vehicles, wasted fuel and oil expenses, and so on and so forth. Sadly, it is the general public who will carry this burden, as evidenced by my colleagues’ four-hour drive to Clark from Balintawak, which normally only takes just over an hour. Who will give us, the general motoring public, what should justly be paid back to us for this huge inconvenience? Everyone else forgets to ask this most important question. And nobody will be punished to make sure this will never happen again.
NLEX will most likely bow to government pressure, either by paying the penalty asked by the TRB, or issue a toll holiday as requested by Sec. Vince Perez, if not both. But the government has some negligence on this matter as well: as always it failed to future-proof our infra with no master plan or roadmap for the country’s infra-future, or at least provide an alternate expressway aside from NLEX going north.
NLEX Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Metro Pacific Investments Corporation should also be penalized for failing to instill safeguards to prevent such incidents from happening (the truck bypassing the truck lanes is an embarrassingly huge oversight, a blatant act of negligence because how in the world do you not see the 18-wheeler truck with a 4.9 meter cargo-laden height get out onto NLEX unnoticed?
Some can say it is endemic in the national psyche: we have many good-meaning laws in place, but implementation is very poor, and the laws lack any real meaningful penalty that will strike true fear and force constituents to truly respect the law, or in this case, traffic laws, regulations and restrictions. This lack of a very painful lesson in breaking the law makes us all casual, nominal followers of it: we follow rules and regulations when it is convenient to us.
And as for the truck driver? License suspension for a minimum of one year and a retake of his driving test afterwards at the LTO head office only. This will force other truck drivers to be more careful in the future. As for the truck owner / operator? If he had knowingly allowed the over capacity of the truck and yet still let it drive out, the operator should have a stiff penalty such as a suspension of their business permit to operate and pay a substantial monetary fine. Their oversight / negligence will hassle millions of people over the two week period it will be required to fix the Marilao bridge.
Every penalty requires a substantial monetary penalty and / or a very tough punishment like suspension or revocation of license. Otherwise, the people will continue to suffer, being innocent victims which could have been avoided with stricter penalties, stricter implementations and clearer guidelines, rules and regulations. Hopefully also the government acts and builds another expressway connecting Metro Manila to the north of Luzon so we, the Filipino motorists, have options and alternatives.
