President Benigno Aquino III has been quoted as saying that fixing the country’s ailing rail system is not one of his administration’s priorities.
Perhaps it is because Mr. Aquino himself has not taken the so-called train challenge. Last year, a few officials of the government braved public transportation for their own purposes: to gain media mileage, to gather input for an investigation, to be able to say they went ahead and did it, or to sincerely know and feel the dehumanizing inconvenience, and sometimes the danger, that ordinary Filipinos have to go through every day.
But to what ends? Nothing has changed at the Metro Rail Transit 3, aside from a few days’ shutdown during the Holy Week supposedly for the fixing of a few bolts, here and there.
Since then, the train has encountered, again and again, “technical problems.”
They say when something bad happens once or twice, it might be misfortune. Anything more than that is a symptom of neglect.
And what utter neglect has this national leadership committed. Sure, only a percentage of the entire population takes the city trains on a regular basis. This does not make their plight any less serious. This is the capital, the flagship of the nation, the area where most Filipinos toil every day to generate output for the economy.
The repair of a section of the railway track of the Philippine National Railways also supports the President’s statement of priority. If not for an accident that injured several commuters – thankfully, nobody died – there would not have been any attempt to fix the dilapidated system.
Increasingly, the sorry state of public transport in Metro Manila is becoming a gut issue. The glitches have been happening more frequently. We understand Mr. Aquino has other things to worry about in his last year of office – hammering down a bill to hand to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front despite its being patently unconditional, for instance, or choosing the right people who can make sure he stays out of jail after he steps down from office. Worse, given that the completion of such improvements, if started now, would be well beyond his term, he may not be able to reap the credit for whatever benefit it may bring the nation. We are all familiar with the man’s fondness for credit.
Despite these, Mr. Aquino could still try and do something actually meaningful in his last year of office. The question is whether he is still willing to do it.
Given the President’s lethargy and his immediate dismissal of valid criticism as the handiwork of enemies, however, we are not too optimistic that commuters can ever expect a smoother ride anytime soon. Even if the President took the challenge and boarded a crowded train today, he would not be able to grasp how important the matter is, because what is a daily, inescapable reality for millions is to him, a mere day’s adventure or haughty response to a clamor.
This is, after all, a person who has taken us all for a ride in the past five years.