Philippines files racism complaint against Hong Kong (Nations of Slaves); AFC Malaysia no Complain yet

Philippine Azkals Football Team. FILE PHOTO

Philippines files racism complaint against Hong Kong football fans

The Philippine Football Federation (PFF) has asked FIFA to investigate allegations that Filipino supporters and players were subject to racist abuse during last week's friendly in Hong Kong, officials said.

The Azkals won the match, 1-0, but home fans pelted the players and their supporters, many of them women and children, with water bottles and other debris after the match.

The complaint was filed Tuesday after reports of "physical and racist abuse against Philippine players and supporters," PFF General Secretary Ed Gastanes said in a statement.

A representative of the Asian Football Confederation in Kuala Lumpur said Thursday that it had not received any formal complaint and would only be able to investigate or take action if asked to do so by the Philippines or FIFA. The official declined to be identified, citing protocol.

He said he did not have information of any previous racism complaints in Asia. The latest incident comes as FIFA has toughening punishments for racial abuse.

The complaint contains statements from Filipino fans who said they were called "slaves" and that Hong Kong fans threw bottles at them and booed the Philippine national anthem.

The Hong Kong Football Association last week condemned inappropriate behavior and said it was investigating the incidents. Spokesman Benny Chan said that the HKFA has a "zero-tolerance" approach to racism.

A reporter for the Philippine Daily Inquirer who covered the June 4 match, Cedelf Tupas, said last week that Hong Kong fans were jeering and taunting the Filipinos, including calling their country a "slave nation."

Tupas said that the hostility intensified after the Philippines scored in the second half. By then, spectators were throwing bottles and juice cartons at the Filipino fans and later the players, Tupas said, adding that others made obscene gestures.

The Filipino fans, who were mostly women and children, made up about 10 percent of the crowd of 4,500.

Some in the southern Chinese city still hold a grudge against the Philippines since a Manila hostage-taking incident in 2010, in which eight Hong Kong tourists were killed in a bungled police rescue. The Hong Kong government has maintained a travel warning for the Philippines since the incident.

Filipinos are also looked down upon in Hong Kong because more than 100,000 of them work as domestic helpers, toiling long hours taking care of children and doing chores for middle-class families for low pay.

With report from INQUIRER Sports 

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China scared other bidders and dominates again in ₱3.76-billion Philippine MRT Rail Bids for Expansion

For the expansion of the Metro Railway Transit, the Department of Transportation and Communications announced the ₱3.76-billion financial proposal of China's Dalian Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co. CNR Group satisfied the eligibility requirements during the opening of its offer late Tuesday.  A Metro Rail Transit (MRT) train is seen Manila on October 31, 2010. AFP PHOTO/NOEL CELIS (Rappler.com)

China's dominance in the world for Engineering Design and Construction (EPC) projects has been proven not only in the Philippines but almost all part of Africa and Latin America.

With the Bidding SOP; winning bidders would be awarded to the lowest bidder, China led that system as the Government will give more incentives to any Chinese firms who win any bidding for foreign projects such as tax exemption for the income of such project and even the Chinese government sometimes will shoulder the loses of any private firm just to win the project and to offer the lowest bid.

For every EPC project that invites Chinese firm to join the bidding, most Europeans, Koreans and Japanese firms will usually back out as proven for so many EPC projects Chinese firm would really win with their lowest bid and government's backup.

According to most Korean company, if Chinese will join bidding for EPC projects, they could just be wasting money to join the bidding because China would really dominates and the same thing happened in the Philippines' Bid for MRT project which other bidder back out after knowing that Chinese firm is invited to join the bidding.

How to invite bidders without driving away the other participants?

If the Bidding SOP; winning bidders would be awarded only to the lowest bidder, then the world would expect that China will dominates but if the system would change into the lowest "Quality" bidder, then it could invite other firm as many firms are more experienced in doing EPC project than china. Requiring at least 20 years of experience in such project would surely disqualify Chinese firm to join the bidding.

Other reasons also matters under the table issues.

Only Chinese firm left in bidding for MRT expansion

The DOTC is now evaluating a single proposal by a lone bidder Chinese manufacturer for the ₱3.77-billion expansion of the Metro Railway Transit's capacity through the addition of more trains after another firm was disqualified and three would-be bidders did not submit bids at all.

The Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) announced that the P3.76-billion financial proposal of China's Dalian Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co. CNR Group satisfied the eligibility requirements during the opening of its offer late Tuesday.

DoTC's bids and awards committee did not open the proposal of the Chinese firm CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co. Ltd., whose submission lacked certain technical requirements.

CSR Zhuzhou was to file a motion for reconsideration or MR, DoTC undersecretary for legal Jose Perpetuo Lotilla told reporters after the opening of the proposal. He said the plan was for the DoTC to "resolve the MR as soon as possible"

In light of its compliance with the DoTC's requirements, Dalian Locomotive's proposal will now be evaluated by the agency. If it passes this process, the company will be awarded the project, Lotilla said.

"There were only two bidders but we just opened one. It's not as good for government," Lotilla noted.

He also declined to comment on how long the evaluation process would take, given the technical nature of the project.

"This is a highly technical bid. We are talking about train systems. So there is a technical proposal, and that is subject to post-qualification," Lotilla said.

The transportation department pushed for the bidding after it dropped a plan to acquire second-hand trains from a Spanish manufacturer.

"We looked at our options for purchasing some of the coaches from Metro de Madrid, but it turns out that this would not have significantly improved the  timeframe we are working on," DoTC spokesperson Michael Sagcal said in a separate statement. "So we decided to continue with the ongoing procurement of new trains instead.  This should also result in lower maintenance costs."

Through the capacity expansion, DoTC will add 48 train cars to MRT 3, which runs 16.9 kilometers on EDSA from North Avenue to Taft Avenue and serves an estimated 600,000 passengers a day, well above its designed capacity of 350,000, the transportation department said.

The elevated MRT 3 train service has a fleet of 73 train cars, serving passengers at supposedly three-minute intervals. DoTC said the addition of new cars will cut the waiting time to 2.5-minute intervals.

With report from INQUIRER

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