For the first time, the Philippines, one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies, will have a mostly underground and earthquake-proof subway system, in the national capital and nearby provinces.
Part of the subway will be operational before President Duterte leaves office on June 30, 2022. Completion is another three years, in 2025.
Total cost is P355.6 billion, making it the Duterte administration’s single largest project ever. As originally planned, the subway will run for 25 kms, from Mindanao Avenue in Quezon City to Taguig. Today, on a good day, that will take you at least two hours in Metro Manila’s horrendous traffic, one way. With a subway, 30 minutes from Quezon City, and you are at your destination, assuming train speed of 80 kph, double the speed of MRT3.
The cabinet, meeting as the economic planning body National Economic and Development Authority, approved the project last week.
The underground railway will be built by the Duterte government, with financing from the Japanese government at very concessional, almost interest-free, loan. The loan agreement is expected to be signed this November in Manila at the summit of Asean leaders and their dialogue partners, which include the United States and Japan, by Duterte and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Japan is also financing another railway, this time above ground, from Manila’s Tutuban station of the old PNR to Malolos, Bulacan. The so-called Green City Rail will cost P211.46 billion.
The concentration of mass railways from north Manila to areas further north reflects a policy shift—away from the rich provinces of the Calabarzon—Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon, to Central Luzon which the government thinks is a better bet for growth, long term.
Central Luzon, or Region III, after all, is mostly flat lands, near major water sources (like Angat and Pantabangan), and has two assets Calabarzon does not have—the Clark airport (whose passenger capacity is being doubled from the present 4.2 million) and the Subic seaport, 110 kms north of Manila, and which has a cargo capacity of 600,000 of 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
Currently, Southern Luzon or Region IV-A, contributes 17 percent (almost P3 trillion) of the national economic output or GDP; Central Luzon shares a paltry 9 percent (P1.575 trillion).
However, Region IV-A has five things Central Luzon does not have—proximity to NAIA which handles 35 million passengers a year, the Batangas international seaport (110 kms south of Manila and with a capacity of 400,000 TUEs), scenic Taal Lake (which is triggering an unprecedented building and tourism boom along both sides of the Aguinaldo Highway from Silang, Cavite to Nasugu, Batangas), sprawling Laguna Lake (a major water source and a circumferential road in the future), and a vibrant entrepreneurial class—Cavite, Batangas and Cavite have proud SME entrepreneurs and gentlemen farmers.
Finally, with climate change in 100 years when sea levels rise one meter, Central Luzon has a greater possibility of sinking (as it did in 1972 when Manila Bay had a date with Lingayen Gulf in Central Luzon), than Southern Luzon a huge chunk of whose area are mountains.
This may explain why even before the Mega Manila subway project could break ground, it is already being expanded, to cross under the South Expressway onto the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Mega Manila means Bulacan, Rizal, Cavite and Laguna, plus Metro Manila (which has 16 cities and one town). Mega Manila has 15,059 sq kms and a population that will hit 19.5 million in 2030 (from 15.3 million in 2010).
Eventually, the subway will extend in the south, from Naia to Dasmariñas City, Cavite, a distance of 20.7 kms, and north, from Mindanao Avenue, to San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, another, 15.4 kms., extending the line to 61 kms, and increasing capacity from 370,000 passengers daily in its first year, to 1.7 million.
How firm is the subway project? Says Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, who sometimes speaks as if he is selling you Manila’s Jones Bridge in Chinatown: “I don’t want bola-bola. I want this project finished.” Apart from fast-tracking the project, he also asked that the subway extend to Naia.
Just so he wouldn’t be ribbed for the colossal failure of his Land Transportation Office to issue plastic driver’s licenses, Tugade last week announced the availability plastic driver’s licenses—on a selective basis. You apply at LTO today for a license, you won’t get your plastic card. A friend of mine applied the other day. She did not get the plastic.
A subway for Metro Manila is actually an old idea. It was first broached during the presidency of BS Aquino III, by the Japanese. A study was finished for the Japan International Cooperation Agency in March 2014.
With Aquino’s Daang Matuwid, the subway never took off and remained underground in the mind of BS III. Duterte has dusted off the study and adopted the subway as his centerpiece Build, Build, Build infra project.
Golf tournament
On a personal note, may I endorse the golf tournament of alumnae of the College of the Holy Spirit for the CHSAF Scholarship Program, this Monday, Sept. 11, 2017, at scenic Sta. Elena Golf Club (take Cabuyao Exit of the South Expressway in Laguna). Please contact Tellie Francisco 893-002; 0917-825-7378; or CHS Secretariat, c/o Cora Parco 735-5986, 0917-271-9325.
CHS alumae need to raise money from tuition for scholarships. Holy Spirit tuition is P70,000 a year; so you know how much to contribute to the fund.
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