January 4, 2018 | 2:26 pm
BY MARIFI S. JARA AND CARMELITO Q. FRANCISCO
http://bworldonline.com/mindanao-train-front-center-languishing-back-burner/
IT’S AN OLD IDEA — a Mindanao railway — dating as far back as the late 1930s after the Luzon rail was completed.
Then the Second World War came along and “it was put on the back burner,” National Economic and Development Authority-Davao Region Director Maria Lourdes D. Lim narrated, citing historical information based on government archives that are contained in the latest feasibility study for the Mindanao Railway System (MRS).
Rehabilitation of the Luzon rail was made a priority post-WWII and it wasn’t until 1957 that a train system for Mindanao, the country’s second biggest island after Luzon, was again considered.
A project study was undertaken by the Philippine National Railways (PNR), identifying a 1,570-kilometer (km.) track that would have required a P2.6-billion budget at that time.
It was probably the cost, but no one can say for sure now why the transport system was never pursued. It would remain shelved for more than three decades.
Mindanao train on front and center after languishing in the back burnerIt was under former President Fidel V. Ramos, who started his six-year term in 1992, that the Mindanao
railway got back on the national government’s radar.
But more than two decades later, after numerous plans and studies under different administrations, the railway remained on the drawing board.
“In the past, we were never listened to; sometimes (the national government pretended listening but it was only lip service,” said Vicente T. Lao, chair of the Mindanao Business Council.
Ms. Lim explains that the way government works is that localities and regional agencies basically “compete” for funding and prioritization, particularly for big-ticket projects, and decisions are ultimately made at the national level with socioeconomic, technical as well as political considerations coming into play.
“It helped a lot when President Duterte won,” she said, referring to former Davao City mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte, the first from Mindanao to be elected president.
“And infrastructure investments are really a focus of this administration,” said NEDA-Davao Chief Economic Development Specialist Mario M. Realista.
< Edited >