SENATOR Ralph Recto appealed on Sunday to Malacanang to defer the bidding for the P15-billion management contract of the bundled Metro Rail Transit–Light Rail Transit (MRT-LRT) systems until Congress enacts the law setting up the Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG).

Recto said among the powers of the proposed GCG is to review the operations of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) to determine if they should be abolished or privatized subject to the approval of President Benigno S. Aquino III.

The GCG will also have the power to review the performance of the GOCCs and professionalize the membership of the GOCC boards.

Recto said the government should allow the GCG a first crack at the MRT-LRT privatization plan under its private-public partnership (PPP) program via a thorough scrutiny.

“This PPP project should not go to market while the GOCC probers are setting up camp,” Recto stressed.

The GCG bill has already passed the bicameral conference committee and would soon be enacted into law as what the main author, Senator Franklin Drilon, has expected.

The bicameral committee report will be submitted to both houses of Congress -- the Senate and the House of Representatives -- for ratification before it is submitted to the President for signature.

The MRT-LRT contract is slated for bidding on July 11.

Under the proposed law, the GCG will be created to supervise the 157 existing government corporations.