The Emperor of Japan may yet solve Metro Manila’s horrendous traffic problem.
The Japanese government has extended a $2-billion Official Development Assistance loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to the Philippines to finance the construction, operation and maintenance of a 38-km North-South Commuter Railway Project (Malolos-Tutuban). The loan agreement was signed last Nov. 27, 2015. The project is finished by 2020.
The Japanese government has also agreed to conduct a study for opening a subway system for Metro Manila running from north to south and west to east of the national capital.
The mass transport agreements should help ease Metro Manila’s traffic which according to JICA itself causes more than $2 billion in yearly losses to the economy.
Their Majesties, Emperor Akihito, 82, and Empress Michiko of Japan will make a five-day state visit to the Philippines from January 26 to 30. It is their second time to visit Manila. They first came here in 1962 to return the state visit of then President Carlos Garcia to Japan. Next week’s visit commemorates the 60th anniversary of normalization of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Japan.
Japan and the Philippines were the most devastated countries during the Second World War II. Japan because of two atomic bombs dropped by the United States in August 1945. More than 129,000 Japanese were killed in the first and so far, only use of nuclear in warfare.
More than 500,000 died in the Philippines during the war, the greatest loss by Japan in any country outside Japan itself. Manila was devastated not because of the Japanese but because of US air bombing of the city. As a result, Manila and Warsaw became the most devastated cities in the world during World War II.
During their visit, the Emperor and the Empress will visit the shrine in honor of the fallen soldiers of Japan in Caliraya. The shrine was begun in 1973 under the presidency of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the most bemedalled Filipino soldier of World War II and who was tortured by the Japanese at Fort Santiago.
The Emperor has distinguished himself as a pacifist, preferring to honor the wartime deaths, apologizing for Japanese transgressions during the War and the abuse of Filipino and Korean comfort women, and disdaining Shinzo Abe’s harsh security posture that revives memories of the Japan East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Under Abe, Japan has been conscripted by the US as a co-policeman in Asia in the light of China’s aggressive annexation in the past two years of reefs, islets, and territories in the South China Sea claimed in whole or in part by seven other Asian countries.
Filipinos won’t give a damn if Japan plays a proxy role in Barack Obama’s Asia Pivot doctrine. But they do give a damn that daily, they spend three hours going to work and another three hours going home—thanks to the decrepit railway systems that rapidly deteriorated under the presidency of BS Aquino III.
That is why it is great relief that JICA is financing a North-South railway from Tutuban Station in Manila to Malolos, Bulacan, and will look into the feasibility of a subway system for the national capital.
Japan puts its money where its mouth is. In 2014, JICA published a study that proposed the construction in 16 years from today of 323 kms of railway (on the state Philippine National Railways’ properties so there is no right-of-way problem), 539 kms of expressways, 498.6 kms of national roads, a new Naia-Sangley airport terminal, and a P514-billion subway system for Mega Manila. The cost of all these projects, including the subway, just P2.1 trillion.
BS Aquino does not spend up to P500 billion out of his P2 trillion to P3 trillion national budget. So P2 trillion can be raised in four years but Aquino has not done anything about mass transit except lip service.
According to JICA, being the country’s largest economic center with 13 percent of the country’s population and 36 percent of the GDP, Metro Manila has grown from 7.92 million people in 1990 to 11.85 million people in 2010, a population density of 19,137 people per square kilometer. In Mega Manila—the region encompassing Metro Manila along with neighboring Rizal, Cavite and Laguna provinces—the population has also increased rapidly over that period, rising from 12.39 million people in 1990 to 23.02 million people in 2010, a growth rate exceeding that of Metro Manila.
JICA has extended ODA loans for mass transportation. But the Aquino government has not been up to par with counterpart initiative.
“The development of efficient railway networks still lags behind,” notes JICA wryly. Says the agency:
“There are currently only three elevated light rail lines with a total length of approximately 50 kilometers in operation in Metro Manila, and one non-electrified commuter line with a low service frequency that is operated by the Philippine National Railways from Metro Manila southward. Despite the rapid growth of Metro Manila and greater Mega Manila, this railway network has been expanded by only five kilometers over the past 10 years. To the north of Metro Manila, a line was abandoned by the Philippine National Railways in 1991, and no new railway lines have been built since, and the lack of railway lines is a factor hindering urban development in that area. As a result, the population and economic activity continue to concentrate in Metro Manila, and traffic congestion worsens, costing an estimated 2.4 trillion yen per year in social expenses, factors that lower the international competitiveness of the Philippine economy.”
Cecile Licad concert
Meanwhile, may I urge my readers to support another worthy cause, that of Nedy Tantoco of the Rustan’s-SSI Group. Her Philippine-Italian Association is sponsoring a concert by world famous artist Cecile Licad on Jan. 28 Thursday, at the CCP Main Theater, with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, Olivier Ochanin conducting. Proceeds will go to the charity projects like scholarships of the association. Go to Ticketworld to get tickets. Or call The Secretariat, c/o Lulu Casas 0917-5708301.