TO bring much-needed development outside of Metro Manila, former Senator Richard J. Gordon yesterday cited the need to immediately undertake intensified improvement on the country’s railway system.
Gordon, speaking at the Pilipino Movement for Transformational Leadership’s People’s Choice covenant signing, said the train going to Laguna and all the way to Bicol, should be rehabilitated to facilitate the movement of people or freight, such as raw materials, crops, supplies or finished goods, and sometimes both.
“Our train system was built in four years, from 1887 to 1891, and began operating in the same year. In the movie Heneral Luna, there was a scene showing the general riding a train. Train journeys used to start or stop at the Tutuban Central Terminal, with the north line going as far as Damortis in La Union and the South Line as far as Legazpi City in Bicol. We even had trains in Cebu, Panay and Negros. But our railway system deteriorated due to years of indifference, negligence and no improvements have been done,” said Gordon, who is seeking a fresh senatorial term.
“In the United States, railroads served as the main mode of transportation and made it cheap and easy to ship supplies and goods, even for Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War. After the Civil War, when the transcontinental railway was completed in 1869, new townships sprouted along the railway lines, and the railroad hastened westward expansion. If we improve our railways too, progress and development will also reach our provinces,” he added.
Gordon pointed out that in countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Korea, India, to cite but a few, having an efficient train system contributed largely to their economic development.
He cited the benefits brought by an efficient train system, such as providing cost-efficient and speedy means of travel for people, facilitates trade and commerce through the transport of cargo and agricultural products such as rice, vegetables and other crops, promoting tourism, providing jobs, and relieving traffic along EDSA and other major highways in Metro Manila, among others. It could even decongest Metro Manila since the train would make the nearby provinces more accessible.
“President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took a step in the right direction when she started the North Rail project, an 80-kilometer railroad that was supposed to link Caloocan with Clark in Pampanga through a train system. It could have been extended to Subic for cargo and to transport goods from the piers. Railways should complement ports. It could even be extended all the way to La Union and Dagupan,” the senatorial bet noted.
In 2003, the Arroyo administration had contracted the China National Machinery and Equipment Corporation for the project with an original contract cost of $421-million.
“The project should have been continued. If there were anomalies, let’s investigate it. But we should have finished the train so we can use it. As it is, what we only have now is the carcass of a scuttled railway rehabilitation project. Look at America’s first transcontinental railroad, Steven Ambrose described it as the most corrupt project. But it was not stopped and it spurred America’s growth,” he said.