President Rodrigo Duterte has signed into law a measure institutionalizing energy efficiency and conservation in the Philippines.
Republic Act (RA) 11285 or the “Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act” was signed by the President on April 12, but was released to the media only on Tuesday, May 7.
Under the law, a National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Plan (NEECP) will be formulated to serve as the framework for programs on energy efficiency and conservation.
The framework will introduce fundamental policies on energy efficiency and conservation, including the promotion of efficient and judicious utilization of energy, increase in the utilization of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, and the delineation of responsibilities among various government agencies and private entities.
The law also mandates the development and maintenance of a National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Database (NEECD), a centralized, comprehensive and unified database on the application and use of energy-efficient and renewable technologies, and other relevant information about energy consumption.
The Energy Efficiency and Conversation Act delegates the Department of Energy (DoE) as the lead agency responsible for the planning, formulation, development, implementation, enforcement and monitoring of energy management policies and other related energy-efficiency conservation plans and programs.
The DoE is also tasked to develop a system of monitoring the implementation of the NEECP, and to maintain the NEECD.
RA 11285 also instructs the Energy department to initiate and maintain collaborative efforts with the business sector, particularly the commercial, industrial, transport and power sectors, to ensure compliance with the law, and broaden and enhance their efficient and judicious utilization of energy.
The law also seeks national awareness and advocacy campaign on energy-efficiency and conservation that will also be done by the DoE, in partnership with business, academe, nongovernment organizations and other sectors.
The DoE is directed to provide annual reports to the Senate and the House of Representatives, with regard to the status of the implementation of the law at the national and local levels, cost effectiveness outcomes and energy and environmental impacts, among others.
The law orders all government agencies, including government-owned and -controlled corporations to ensure the efficient use of energy in their respective offices, facilities and transportation units, and in the discharge of their functions.
RA 11285 also creates an Inter-Agency Energy Efficiency and Conservation Committee that is tasked to provide strategic direction in the implementation of the government energy management program, a program that will reduce monthly consumption of electricity and petroleum products by the government.
The European Union Access to the Sustainable Energy Program has estimated that a 10-percent improvement in efficiency would save the Philippines P55.5 billion, which translates to a P140 monthly or P1,680 annual savings in the monthly electricity bill of the average household.
The World Bank has also reported that government energy efficiency projects could help the government save P3.4 billion per year.
RA 11285 will take effect after 15 days from its publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation.
https://www.manilatimes.net/duterte-signs-energy-conservation-law/550987/
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Roxas to the Senate? His reward for wrecking MRT-3?
I WROTE the column reproduced below on May 17, 2017, and there were several others on the same topic earlier in 2016 and 2015.
Mar Roxas and Emilio Abaya, who were Aquino 3rd’s transport secretaries when the MRT-3 went to the dogs, did not contest any of its claims, or even its title: “For the MRT-3 mess, Roxas and Abaya should be in jail by now.” Yet he wants to be in the Senate now.
The Duterte administration did file in November 2017 plunder charges against the two as well as other Aquino Cabinet members for rigging the bidding for the P4-billion maintenance contract for MRT-3 to favor a Liberal Party-linked outfit. Guess what?
The Ombudsman then, Aquino’s favorite woman in robes, Conchita Carpio-Morales, dropped the charges against Roxas, and reduced from plunder to just graft those against Abaya and the other Cabinet members. She did this June 25, 2018, a few weeks before her compulsory retirement on July 25.
Last year, Liberal Party head Francisco Pangilinan said that Roxas would not be running for a Senate seat in the elections this May. Why can’t I shake off the suspicion that being a senator is one way of making sure he won’t be indicted again?
The Yellows — and Church leaders — have been on a propaganda tack calling on Filipinos not to vote thieves (magnanakaw) to office, especially to the Senate.
Beyond bribes, the worst kind of theft is that of the million Metro Manila commuters’ well-being, who had to endure daily during Aquino’s term the disastrous results of Roxas and Abaya’s mismanagement of the MRT-3.
The two DoTC secretaries when the MRT-3 became a daily hell for commuters.
2017 column follows:
OR perhaps in Duterte Speak, Aquino 3rd’s transport secretary, Emilio Abaya, and his predecessor, Mar Roxas, should have been lynched at the highest point of the MRT-3 line along EDSA for having made life a daily hell for hundreds of thousands of commuters with their handling of that mass transport system.
How Abaya and Roxas messed up the Metro Rail Transit (MRT-3) line is probably the most documented case of incompetence — or corruption — in running a government enterprise. If the Ombudsman weren’t Conchita Carpio-Morales, who was so close to Aquino that he chose her to swear him to office as president, I’m sure Roxas and Abaya would be in jail by now.
Consider the facts: For 10 years after MRT-3 started operations, the Japanese firm Sumitomo Corp. maintained the system under a contract with Metro Rail Transit Corp. (MRTC), the MRT-3’s private builder and operator. The train was so efficient that Sumitomo had boasted about MRT-3 in its sales pitch to bid for mass-transit projects around the world.
Renewed 4 times
When Sumitomo’s contract expired in July 2010, it was given six-month maintenance contracts only. This placed Sumitomo in a bind as it required a longer time frame so it could estimate how much of maintenance inventory it needed to keep, which accounted for half of its $1-million monthly contract. Sumitomo repeatedly wrote to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) to request a bidding for a longer-term contract. DoTC didn’t reply at all.
However, on Oct. 4, 2012, or just two weeks before Sumitomo’s fourth six-month contract was to have ended on October 19, the DoTC said it would no longer renew it, and that a three-year contract would be bid out.
It scheduled a bidding in two weeks. Sumitomo calculated that this was such an impossible short time frame that it backed out of the auction. That was the start of the MRT-3’s deterioration.
Note that all this time, during which the bidding could have been announced way in advance so that bidders would have had time to prepare for it, the DoTC head was Roxas, who ran for the presidency in 2016 and landed — amazingly — second.
However, in August 2012, Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo was killed in an airplane crash and Aquino appointed Roxas to replace him. Roxas assumed the post — strangely — only two months later, on October 19. It was Abaya, appointed to replace Roxas, who signed the maintenance contract with an obscure firm PH Trams-CB&T on the day he assumed office as DoTC head.
This two-month-old company, capitalized at only P2.5 million, or less than one percent of the P300 million cost of the maintenance contract, won the bidding that Roxas had called just two weeks before. One of its six investors was known in Pangasinan province as a Liberal Party financial supporter — Wilson de Vera. He had been accused by the Czech ambassador of attempting in July 2012 to extort $30 million from the Czech company Inekon in exchange for winning the contract to supply MRT-3 with train cars.
He just signed it
Abaya, in a hearing the other day at the Senate, claimed he didn’t know about the firm’s background, and that it was Roxas who made all the decisions over the maintenance contract and the bidding for it. He said he just presumed that nothing was wrong with the contract so he signed the documents when he took over as head of the DoTC on October 19.
Why did Roxas drag his feet for a month and a half to leave his DoTC post only on October 19, even if Aquino had appointed him to the DILG post on August 31? Is this a huge coincidence that October 19 was the day PH Trams signed the contract with MRT-3?
Am I too suspicious to speculate that Roxas was a segurista, that he wanted to make sure that his two-year plot to get a favored contractor in place before he stepped down pushed through? Was it even a better scenario for him that his apparently witless lackey, Abaya, and Vitangcol signed the contract papers and, therefore, would be accountable if the scheme was exposed?
What these morons did not realize, though, was that Sumitomo’s maintenance contract was not as profitable as it seemed. Half of the contract price was the cost of inventory for the MRT-3’s parts, which were expensive because many of them were precision-engineered and of the highest-quality steel.
What these idiots also did not know was that Sumitomo was satisfied with getting the smallest business margins from the contract, as it was more concerned about its reputation so it could get more and bigger projects all over the world. Its MRT-3 maintenance contract barely made a profit, but Sumitomo used the rail’s efficiency as proof of its expertise in light rail building and maintenance.
Indeed, Sumitomo has built a reputation as one of the best light-rail builders in the world, with its latest projects being the $500 million contract signed in 2012 to build Vietnam’s first urban rail system, and a $398-million supply contract for Chicago Metra’s commuter rail cars.
Scrimping on expenses
Scrimping on expenses as much as it could to make the contract hugely profitable, PH Trams didn’t build up a stock of spare parts and resorted to cannibalizing its [the MRT-3’s] other cars for the required parts. The result: the number of cars running at present stands at 14 at the most, down sharply from 70 when Sumitomo was running MRT-3.
Without a stock of replacements, the trains’ steel wheels got to be so squeezed into ovals so that these had to run slower, or else they would be derailed. With maintenance becoming so messed up, MRT-3 trains made mid-station stops, or had to run so slowly.
As a result there has been so much outrage over MRT-3’s breakdowns and overcrowding of its coaches. In December 2015, Abaya awarded after a “simplified bidding” a new P4 billion contract to a consortium led by the Korean Busan Transportation Corp. As happened during Roxas’ time, Abaya claimed there was an emergency situation so that the “winner” of the bid was determined through negotiations. The contract is for three years, i.e., until 2018.
This consortium’s lawyer is one Luis Carpio Jr., the brother of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales. Is that what you’d call bullet-proofing a contract?
Email: tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
Twitter: @bobitiglao
Book orders: www.rigobertotiglao.com/debunked
https://www.manilatimes.net/roxas-to-the-senate-his-reward-for-wrecking-mrt-3/551107/
Mar Roxas and Emilio Abaya, who were Aquino 3rd’s transport secretaries when the MRT-3 went to the dogs, did not contest any of its claims, or even its title: “For the MRT-3 mess, Roxas and Abaya should be in jail by now.” Yet he wants to be in the Senate now.
The Duterte administration did file in November 2017 plunder charges against the two as well as other Aquino Cabinet members for rigging the bidding for the P4-billion maintenance contract for MRT-3 to favor a Liberal Party-linked outfit. Guess what?
The Ombudsman then, Aquino’s favorite woman in robes, Conchita Carpio-Morales, dropped the charges against Roxas, and reduced from plunder to just graft those against Abaya and the other Cabinet members. She did this June 25, 2018, a few weeks before her compulsory retirement on July 25.
Last year, Liberal Party head Francisco Pangilinan said that Roxas would not be running for a Senate seat in the elections this May. Why can’t I shake off the suspicion that being a senator is one way of making sure he won’t be indicted again?
The Yellows — and Church leaders — have been on a propaganda tack calling on Filipinos not to vote thieves (magnanakaw) to office, especially to the Senate.
Beyond bribes, the worst kind of theft is that of the million Metro Manila commuters’ well-being, who had to endure daily during Aquino’s term the disastrous results of Roxas and Abaya’s mismanagement of the MRT-3.
The two DoTC secretaries when the MRT-3 became a daily hell for commuters.
2017 column follows:
OR perhaps in Duterte Speak, Aquino 3rd’s transport secretary, Emilio Abaya, and his predecessor, Mar Roxas, should have been lynched at the highest point of the MRT-3 line along EDSA for having made life a daily hell for hundreds of thousands of commuters with their handling of that mass transport system.
How Abaya and Roxas messed up the Metro Rail Transit (MRT-3) line is probably the most documented case of incompetence — or corruption — in running a government enterprise. If the Ombudsman weren’t Conchita Carpio-Morales, who was so close to Aquino that he chose her to swear him to office as president, I’m sure Roxas and Abaya would be in jail by now.
Consider the facts: For 10 years after MRT-3 started operations, the Japanese firm Sumitomo Corp. maintained the system under a contract with Metro Rail Transit Corp. (MRTC), the MRT-3’s private builder and operator. The train was so efficient that Sumitomo had boasted about MRT-3 in its sales pitch to bid for mass-transit projects around the world.
Renewed 4 times
When Sumitomo’s contract expired in July 2010, it was given six-month maintenance contracts only. This placed Sumitomo in a bind as it required a longer time frame so it could estimate how much of maintenance inventory it needed to keep, which accounted for half of its $1-million monthly contract. Sumitomo repeatedly wrote to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) to request a bidding for a longer-term contract. DoTC didn’t reply at all.
However, on Oct. 4, 2012, or just two weeks before Sumitomo’s fourth six-month contract was to have ended on October 19, the DoTC said it would no longer renew it, and that a three-year contract would be bid out.
It scheduled a bidding in two weeks. Sumitomo calculated that this was such an impossible short time frame that it backed out of the auction. That was the start of the MRT-3’s deterioration.
Note that all this time, during which the bidding could have been announced way in advance so that bidders would have had time to prepare for it, the DoTC head was Roxas, who ran for the presidency in 2016 and landed — amazingly — second.
However, in August 2012, Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo was killed in an airplane crash and Aquino appointed Roxas to replace him. Roxas assumed the post — strangely — only two months later, on October 19. It was Abaya, appointed to replace Roxas, who signed the maintenance contract with an obscure firm PH Trams-CB&T on the day he assumed office as DoTC head.
This two-month-old company, capitalized at only P2.5 million, or less than one percent of the P300 million cost of the maintenance contract, won the bidding that Roxas had called just two weeks before. One of its six investors was known in Pangasinan province as a Liberal Party financial supporter — Wilson de Vera. He had been accused by the Czech ambassador of attempting in July 2012 to extort $30 million from the Czech company Inekon in exchange for winning the contract to supply MRT-3 with train cars.
He just signed it
Abaya, in a hearing the other day at the Senate, claimed he didn’t know about the firm’s background, and that it was Roxas who made all the decisions over the maintenance contract and the bidding for it. He said he just presumed that nothing was wrong with the contract so he signed the documents when he took over as head of the DoTC on October 19.
Why did Roxas drag his feet for a month and a half to leave his DoTC post only on October 19, even if Aquino had appointed him to the DILG post on August 31? Is this a huge coincidence that October 19 was the day PH Trams signed the contract with MRT-3?
Am I too suspicious to speculate that Roxas was a segurista, that he wanted to make sure that his two-year plot to get a favored contractor in place before he stepped down pushed through? Was it even a better scenario for him that his apparently witless lackey, Abaya, and Vitangcol signed the contract papers and, therefore, would be accountable if the scheme was exposed?
What these morons did not realize, though, was that Sumitomo’s maintenance contract was not as profitable as it seemed. Half of the contract price was the cost of inventory for the MRT-3’s parts, which were expensive because many of them were precision-engineered and of the highest-quality steel.
What these idiots also did not know was that Sumitomo was satisfied with getting the smallest business margins from the contract, as it was more concerned about its reputation so it could get more and bigger projects all over the world. Its MRT-3 maintenance contract barely made a profit, but Sumitomo used the rail’s efficiency as proof of its expertise in light rail building and maintenance.
Indeed, Sumitomo has built a reputation as one of the best light-rail builders in the world, with its latest projects being the $500 million contract signed in 2012 to build Vietnam’s first urban rail system, and a $398-million supply contract for Chicago Metra’s commuter rail cars.
Scrimping on expenses
Scrimping on expenses as much as it could to make the contract hugely profitable, PH Trams didn’t build up a stock of spare parts and resorted to cannibalizing its [the MRT-3’s] other cars for the required parts. The result: the number of cars running at present stands at 14 at the most, down sharply from 70 when Sumitomo was running MRT-3.
Without a stock of replacements, the trains’ steel wheels got to be so squeezed into ovals so that these had to run slower, or else they would be derailed. With maintenance becoming so messed up, MRT-3 trains made mid-station stops, or had to run so slowly.
As a result there has been so much outrage over MRT-3’s breakdowns and overcrowding of its coaches. In December 2015, Abaya awarded after a “simplified bidding” a new P4 billion contract to a consortium led by the Korean Busan Transportation Corp. As happened during Roxas’ time, Abaya claimed there was an emergency situation so that the “winner” of the bid was determined through negotiations. The contract is for three years, i.e., until 2018.
This consortium’s lawyer is one Luis Carpio Jr., the brother of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales. Is that what you’d call bullet-proofing a contract?
Email: tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
Twitter: @bobitiglao
Book orders: www.rigobertotiglao.com/debunked
https://www.manilatimes.net/roxas-to-the-senate-his-reward-for-wrecking-mrt-3/551107/
LRT 1 expects new trains from Japan
The Department of Transportation said Tuesday it expects the delivery of trains from Japan for LRT Line 1 Cavite Extension Project by July next year as the Light Rail Manila Corp. started the construction of the line’s extension.
Transportation Undersecretary for rail Timothy John Batan said the first and second four-car train sets were on schedule for delivery in July 2020.
He said the next eight 4-car train sets would be delivered in December 2020 and 30 more 4-car train sets would arrive in 2021 to 2022.
The department and Mitsubishi Corp. signed a P12.8 billion in December 2018 for the manufacturing of 120 new cars for LRT Cavite Extension Project.
Batan said a new depot would be built in Zapote while the Baclaran depot would be expanded from its current capacity of 145 LRVs to 197 LRVs.
A new satellite depot will also be constructed in Zapote to accommodate 72 LRVs.
http://manilastandard.net/business/biz-plus/294155/lrt-1-expects-new-trains-from-japan.html
Transportation Undersecretary for rail Timothy John Batan said the first and second four-car train sets were on schedule for delivery in July 2020.
He said the next eight 4-car train sets would be delivered in December 2020 and 30 more 4-car train sets would arrive in 2021 to 2022.
The department and Mitsubishi Corp. signed a P12.8 billion in December 2018 for the manufacturing of 120 new cars for LRT Cavite Extension Project.
Batan said a new depot would be built in Zapote while the Baclaran depot would be expanded from its current capacity of 145 LRVs to 197 LRVs.
A new satellite depot will also be constructed in Zapote to accommodate 72 LRVs.
http://manilastandard.net/business/biz-plus/294155/lrt-1-expects-new-trains-from-japan.html
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Work on LRT-1 extension to Cavite begins
Construction of the extension of the Light Rail Transit-1 (LRT-1) from Baclaran to Cavite started Tuesday, two years after its groundbreaking.
A total of 11.7 kilometers will be added to the existing railway system that will connect Metro Manila and Baclaran through a railway network.
According to Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, who led the official start of construction through a gathering in Paranaque City, the LRT extension will feature eight new train stations, five of which will be partially operational by the fourth quarter of 2021.
The usual travel time of one hour and 10 minutes from Baclaran to Cavite will be reduced to just 25 minutes once the railway network is completed.
Tugade explained it took two years for the actual work to begin because of right of way problems.
He said when the current administration assumed office “there was no right of way in 2016, in 2017. It is zero certification.”
“But after two years that zero certification is now more than 92 percent (completed). In other words, in terms of right of way, this project is a go,” Tugade said.
Transportation Undersecretary for Railways Timothy John Batan said it has been 18 years since the project to extend LRT-1 to Cavite was approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).
“Now after almost two decades and three administrations, all that we need are here to finally start and finish the LRT-1 extension,” Batan said.
In the span of two years, Tugade reported that informal settler families affected by the project have been relocated while additional light rail vehicles have started arriving into the country.
A deal to extend Baclaran Depot and build an additional depot for the vehicles have also been closed.
https://news.mb.com.ph/2019/05/07/work-on-lrt-1-extension-to-cavite-begins/
A total of 11.7 kilometers will be added to the existing railway system that will connect Metro Manila and Baclaran through a railway network.
According to Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, who led the official start of construction through a gathering in Paranaque City, the LRT extension will feature eight new train stations, five of which will be partially operational by the fourth quarter of 2021.
The usual travel time of one hour and 10 minutes from Baclaran to Cavite will be reduced to just 25 minutes once the railway network is completed.
Tugade explained it took two years for the actual work to begin because of right of way problems.
He said when the current administration assumed office “there was no right of way in 2016, in 2017. It is zero certification.”
“But after two years that zero certification is now more than 92 percent (completed). In other words, in terms of right of way, this project is a go,” Tugade said.
Transportation Undersecretary for Railways Timothy John Batan said it has been 18 years since the project to extend LRT-1 to Cavite was approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).
“Now after almost two decades and three administrations, all that we need are here to finally start and finish the LRT-1 extension,” Batan said.
In the span of two years, Tugade reported that informal settler families affected by the project have been relocated while additional light rail vehicles have started arriving into the country.
A deal to extend Baclaran Depot and build an additional depot for the vehicles have also been closed.
https://news.mb.com.ph/2019/05/07/work-on-lrt-1-extension-to-cavite-begins/
Construction on LRT-1 extension to Cavite starts
Construction on the LRT-1 extension from Pasay City to Cavite province began on Tuesday, 5 years after it was awarded to Light Rail Manila Corp, the Department of Transportation said.
The extension, spanning nearly 21 kilometers, will add 8 stations from Baclaran: Redemptorist, MIA, Asia World, Ninoy Aquino, Dr. Santos, Las Piñas, Zapote and Niog, the agency said.
Five stations from Baclaran will be operational by the end of 2021, the DOTr said.
Once completed, the extension will nearly double the LRT's daily ridership to 800,000 from 458,000. It will also reduce travel time from Cavite to Baclaran to 25 minutes from 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Light Rail Manila, a joint venture composed of Ayala Corp, Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings, will manage the LRT 1 for 32 years.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/05/07/19/construction-on-lrt-1-extension-to-cavite-starts
The extension, spanning nearly 21 kilometers, will add 8 stations from Baclaran: Redemptorist, MIA, Asia World, Ninoy Aquino, Dr. Santos, Las Piñas, Zapote and Niog, the agency said.
Five stations from Baclaran will be operational by the end of 2021, the DOTr said.
Once completed, the extension will nearly double the LRT's daily ridership to 800,000 from 458,000. It will also reduce travel time from Cavite to Baclaran to 25 minutes from 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Light Rail Manila, a joint venture composed of Ayala Corp, Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings, will manage the LRT 1 for 32 years.
After more than two decades, LRT1 Cavite Extension project starts actual construction today, May 7. Here’s a first look on what the train sets for the rail extension project will look like: pic.twitter.com/9WIdgjVCEj
— Jacque Manabat (@jacquemanabat) May 7, 2019
https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/05/07/19/construction-on-lrt-1-extension-to-cavite-starts
Construction of LRT-1 Cavite extension begins
Construction of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1) Cavite Extension officially started Tuesday, almost five years after the project was awarded to Light Rail Manila Corporation (LRMC).
Officials, including Transport Secretary Arthur Tugade, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar, and re-electionist Senator Cynthia Villar attended the program marking the commencement of the LRT-1 Cavite Extension construction located along C5 Highway in Parañaque City.
Undersecretary for Railways Atty. Timothy John Batan, LRMC President Juan Felipe Alfonso, Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Koji Haneda, and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Chief Representative Yoshio Wada were also present in the event.
The Cavite Extension project will establish additional stations for LRT-1, namely, Aseana, MIA, Asiaworld, Ninoy Aquino, Dr. Santos, Las Piñas, Zapote, and Niog in Cavite. It will cover 11.7 kilometers and expected to accommodate up to 800,000 passengers daily.
Officials said operation of the first five new LRT-1 stations is set by end of 2021. They also said the project is anticipated to reduce travel time from Cavite to Baclaran from over an hour to 25 minutes.
The LRT-1 Cavite Extension project is carried out with JICA’s assistance. It is part of the Duterte administration’s ambitious “Build, Build, Build” program.
Currently, LRT-1’s stations run from Roosevelt in Quezon City and stops at Baclaran in Parañaque City. LRMC is the operator of LRT-1, which has a daily average ridership of 458,000. /kga
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1114819/construction-of-lrt-1-cavite-extension-begins
Officials, including Transport Secretary Arthur Tugade, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar, and re-electionist Senator Cynthia Villar attended the program marking the commencement of the LRT-1 Cavite Extension construction located along C5 Highway in Parañaque City.
Undersecretary for Railways Atty. Timothy John Batan, LRMC President Juan Felipe Alfonso, Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Koji Haneda, and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Chief Representative Yoshio Wada were also present in the event.
The Cavite Extension project will establish additional stations for LRT-1, namely, Aseana, MIA, Asiaworld, Ninoy Aquino, Dr. Santos, Las Piñas, Zapote, and Niog in Cavite. It will cover 11.7 kilometers and expected to accommodate up to 800,000 passengers daily.
Officials said operation of the first five new LRT-1 stations is set by end of 2021. They also said the project is anticipated to reduce travel time from Cavite to Baclaran from over an hour to 25 minutes.
The LRT-1 Cavite Extension project is carried out with JICA’s assistance. It is part of the Duterte administration’s ambitious “Build, Build, Build” program.
Currently, LRT-1’s stations run from Roosevelt in Quezon City and stops at Baclaran in Parañaque City. LRMC is the operator of LRT-1, which has a daily average ridership of 458,000. /kga
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1114819/construction-of-lrt-1-cavite-extension-begins
Construction of LRT1 Cavite extension 'full steam ahead'
The first 5 stations of the LRT1 Cavite extension are expected to begin operations by the 4th quarter of 2021
The construction of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT1) Cavite extension is "full steam ahead," said the Department of Transportation (DOTr) on Tuesday, May 7.
The 11.7-kilometer railway extension project started construction in April. A ceremony was held on Tuesday to mark the beginning of the construction.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the Cavite extension was actually held back in May 2017. But the project faced right-of-way issues, delaying construction several times.
In a statement on Monday, May 6, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) said they have since relocated informal settlers, addressed issues with utilities, and cleared the construction yard.
The right-of-way acquisition is about 90% completed too, the DOTr said.
Partial operations for the first 5 stations – Redemptorist, MIA, Asiaworld, Ninoy Aquino, and Dr Santos – should start by the 4th quarter of 2021.
The Cavite extension will be connected to the existing system immediately south of the Baclaran Station, and run all the way to Niog, Cavite.
It is expected to cut travel time from Manila to Cavite to 25 minutes from over an hour, and would expand the current LRT1 capacity from 300,000 to 800,000 by the time it is completed.
Light Rail Manila Corporation (LRMC) took over the operations, maintenance, and extension of the LRT1 in September 2015, after bagging the P64.9-billion ($1.25-billion) LRT1 Cavite extension deal.
LRMC is a consortium of Ayala Corporation, Metro Pacific Investments Corporation, and the Macquarie Group.
https://www.rappler.com/business/229873-lrt1-cavite-extension-construction-full-steam-ahead-may-2019
The construction of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT1) Cavite extension is "full steam ahead," said the Department of Transportation (DOTr) on Tuesday, May 7.
The 11.7-kilometer railway extension project started construction in April. A ceremony was held on Tuesday to mark the beginning of the construction.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the Cavite extension was actually held back in May 2017. But the project faced right-of-way issues, delaying construction several times.
In a statement on Monday, May 6, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) said they have since relocated informal settlers, addressed issues with utilities, and cleared the construction yard.
The right-of-way acquisition is about 90% completed too, the DOTr said.
Partial operations for the first 5 stations – Redemptorist, MIA, Asiaworld, Ninoy Aquino, and Dr Santos – should start by the 4th quarter of 2021.
The Cavite extension will be connected to the existing system immediately south of the Baclaran Station, and run all the way to Niog, Cavite.
It is expected to cut travel time from Manila to Cavite to 25 minutes from over an hour, and would expand the current LRT1 capacity from 300,000 to 800,000 by the time it is completed.
Light Rail Manila Corporation (LRMC) took over the operations, maintenance, and extension of the LRT1 in September 2015, after bagging the P64.9-billion ($1.25-billion) LRT1 Cavite extension deal.
LRMC is a consortium of Ayala Corporation, Metro Pacific Investments Corporation, and the Macquarie Group.
https://www.rappler.com/business/229873-lrt1-cavite-extension-construction-full-steam-ahead-may-2019
Construction of LRT1 Cavite extension kicks off
By TED CORDERO, GMA News
Almost five years after the project was awarded to a private proponent, the construction of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT1) Cavite Extension has finally begun on Tuesday.
The P64.9-billion project was awarded to the Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC) in September 2014.
The LRMC is a consortium of the Ayala Corporation, Metro Pacific Light Rail Corporation, and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings.
The LRMC, however, only took over the operations and maintenance of the LRT1 rail system in September 2015.
Under the deal, the private operator shall manage the LRT1 for 32 years, during which it will also extend the line by 11.7 kilometers to 32.4 km from the current 20.7 km.
The contract states that the LRMC, as the private partner, will undertake the design, construction, and financing of the Cavite Extension, as well as the operation and maintenance of the integrated system upon completion of the project.
The project, however, took much longer to be implemented as the project was originally approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board last August 25, 2000.
“After 18 years, eight months, and 13 days” the project is finally starting full-blown construction, Transportation Undersecretary for Raile Timothy John Batan said during the ceremony of the LRT-1 Cavite Extension’s construction kickoff in Parañaque City.
The project will extend the LRT1’s last station in Baclaran all the way to Bacoor City in Cavite.
The additional 11.7-kilometer line is comprised of eight new stations namely, Redemptorist, MIA, Asiaworld, Ninoy Aquino, Dr. Santos, Las Piñas, Zapote, and Niog. The project also includes provisions for the construction of two additional passenger stations — Manuyo and Talaba.
Once the project is complete, the Cavite Extension will extend LRT1 from its current 20 km to 32.4 km, accommodating up to 800,000 passengers daily nearly doubling its current average ridership of 458,000 passengers a day.
Travel time from Cavite to Baclaran will be reduced from one hour and 10 minutes to only 25 minutes.
Partial operations from Baclaran to Dr. Santos Station is targeted to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2021.
To recall, former President Benigno Simeon Aquino III in 2013 said that he, along with former Transportation and Communciations Secretary Emilio Joseph "Jun" Abaya, was willing to be run over by a train if the project does not materialize by 2015.
Then Communications Secretary Herminio "Sonny" Coloma would later say Aquino's "statement (in 2013 should) not be taken literally."
Abaya earlier said that the delays were caused by the failure in the project's bidding process under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Program. — MDM, GMA News
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/money/companies/693580/construction-of-lrt1-cavite-extension-kicks-off/story/
Almost five years after the project was awarded to a private proponent, the construction of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT1) Cavite Extension has finally begun on Tuesday.
The P64.9-billion project was awarded to the Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC) in September 2014.
The LRMC is a consortium of the Ayala Corporation, Metro Pacific Light Rail Corporation, and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings.
The LRMC, however, only took over the operations and maintenance of the LRT1 rail system in September 2015.
Under the deal, the private operator shall manage the LRT1 for 32 years, during which it will also extend the line by 11.7 kilometers to 32.4 km from the current 20.7 km.
The contract states that the LRMC, as the private partner, will undertake the design, construction, and financing of the Cavite Extension, as well as the operation and maintenance of the integrated system upon completion of the project.
The project, however, took much longer to be implemented as the project was originally approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board last August 25, 2000.
“After 18 years, eight months, and 13 days” the project is finally starting full-blown construction, Transportation Undersecretary for Raile Timothy John Batan said during the ceremony of the LRT-1 Cavite Extension’s construction kickoff in Parañaque City.
The project will extend the LRT1’s last station in Baclaran all the way to Bacoor City in Cavite.
The additional 11.7-kilometer line is comprised of eight new stations namely, Redemptorist, MIA, Asiaworld, Ninoy Aquino, Dr. Santos, Las Piñas, Zapote, and Niog. The project also includes provisions for the construction of two additional passenger stations — Manuyo and Talaba.
Once the project is complete, the Cavite Extension will extend LRT1 from its current 20 km to 32.4 km, accommodating up to 800,000 passengers daily nearly doubling its current average ridership of 458,000 passengers a day.
Travel time from Cavite to Baclaran will be reduced from one hour and 10 minutes to only 25 minutes.
Partial operations from Baclaran to Dr. Santos Station is targeted to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2021.
To recall, former President Benigno Simeon Aquino III in 2013 said that he, along with former Transportation and Communciations Secretary Emilio Joseph "Jun" Abaya, was willing to be run over by a train if the project does not materialize by 2015.
Then Communications Secretary Herminio "Sonny" Coloma would later say Aquino's "statement (in 2013 should) not be taken literally."
Abaya earlier said that the delays were caused by the failure in the project's bidding process under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Program. — MDM, GMA News
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/money/companies/693580/construction-of-lrt1-cavite-extension-kicks-off/story/
Construction of LRT-1 Cavite extension kicks off
After a two-year delay, the construction of the Light Rail Transit (LRT-1) Cavite extension finally began onTuesday.
Government officials previously announced that the construction would start on June 2017, a month after they broke ground for the project. The Department of Transportation (DOTr) explained that right of way issues impeded work on the P64.9-billion railway.
The LRT-1 currently has 20 stations from Roosevelt in Quezon City to Baclaran in Pasay City. In the extension project, eight new stations will be built in Aseana, Manila International Airport, Asia World, Ninoy Aquino, and Dr. A. Santos stations in Parañaque City, Las Piñas and Zapote stations in Las Piñas City, and Niog station in Bacoor, Cavite.
The 11.7-kilometer extension is expected to increase the entire LRT-1 passenger load from 300,000 to 800,000 daily.
Once operational, it will cut travel time from Bacoor, Cavite to Metro Manila by two hours and 40 minutes.
The DOTr said the railway project will be partially operational in 2021.
http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2019/5/7/lrt-1-cavite-extension-construction.html
Government officials previously announced that the construction would start on June 2017, a month after they broke ground for the project. The Department of Transportation (DOTr) explained that right of way issues impeded work on the P64.9-billion railway.
The LRT-1 currently has 20 stations from Roosevelt in Quezon City to Baclaran in Pasay City. In the extension project, eight new stations will be built in Aseana, Manila International Airport, Asia World, Ninoy Aquino, and Dr. A. Santos stations in Parañaque City, Las Piñas and Zapote stations in Las Piñas City, and Niog station in Bacoor, Cavite.
The 11.7-kilometer extension is expected to increase the entire LRT-1 passenger load from 300,000 to 800,000 daily.
Once operational, it will cut travel time from Bacoor, Cavite to Metro Manila by two hours and 40 minutes.
The DOTr said the railway project will be partially operational in 2021.
http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2019/5/7/lrt-1-cavite-extension-construction.html
PNR asked to distribute Mabalacat railway lands
MABALACAT City Mayor Crisostomo Garbo has asked the Philippine National Railways (PNR) to distribute the lands inside the train tracks here to some 6,456 families or 29,052 informal settlers.
Garbo, in his letter to PNR board chairman Roberto Lastimoso and general Manager Junn Magno dated April 26, 2019, stated that the properties should be distributed to the actual occupants if the railway corporation will no longer utilize the train’s old alignment.
“Should the subject PNR property shall no longer be used considering the entirely different line where the North-South Commuter Railway Extension (NSCR-Ex) Project shall be constructed, the city government of Mabalacat humbly proposes and requests that the same be distributed to its bona fide Mabalaqueño occupants,” Garbo told Lastimoso and Magno.
On January 8, 2018, the Department of Transportation (DoTr) invited the city government of Mabalacat to an orientation, briefing and coordination on the flagship projects of President Rodrigo Duterte, which is the railway extension from Malolos, Bulacan to Clark Freeport, according to the mayor.
“As one of the local government units where the proposed railway shall pass through, our cooperation and support was sought to ensure smooth and coordinated implementation of the project,” Garbo said.
During the meeting, it was revealed that the new railway will no longer be aligned along the old track based on the official plan.
“A close perusal of the official plan of the North-South Commuter Railway Extension Project will show that the new railway line shall no longer be using the PNR right of way, as the instant project shall be constructed in a different location far from the latter,” he added.
Considering the apparent abandonment of the subject PNR property, Garbo is inquiring the agency’s plans for the properties.
Garbo assured the PNR officials that the local government is willing to cooperate and assist the agency and other departments in the distribution of the property.
The mayor said that city planning officer Rosann Paquia was designated to take charge of all coordination and communication with the PNR regarding the LGU’s proposal.
“It is but our foremost aspiration that no Mabalaqueño shall be an informal settler in Mabalacat,” Garbo told the PNR executives.
https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1804529
Garbo, in his letter to PNR board chairman Roberto Lastimoso and general Manager Junn Magno dated April 26, 2019, stated that the properties should be distributed to the actual occupants if the railway corporation will no longer utilize the train’s old alignment.
“Should the subject PNR property shall no longer be used considering the entirely different line where the North-South Commuter Railway Extension (NSCR-Ex) Project shall be constructed, the city government of Mabalacat humbly proposes and requests that the same be distributed to its bona fide Mabalaqueño occupants,” Garbo told Lastimoso and Magno.
On January 8, 2018, the Department of Transportation (DoTr) invited the city government of Mabalacat to an orientation, briefing and coordination on the flagship projects of President Rodrigo Duterte, which is the railway extension from Malolos, Bulacan to Clark Freeport, according to the mayor.
“As one of the local government units where the proposed railway shall pass through, our cooperation and support was sought to ensure smooth and coordinated implementation of the project,” Garbo said.
During the meeting, it was revealed that the new railway will no longer be aligned along the old track based on the official plan.
“A close perusal of the official plan of the North-South Commuter Railway Extension Project will show that the new railway line shall no longer be using the PNR right of way, as the instant project shall be constructed in a different location far from the latter,” he added.
Considering the apparent abandonment of the subject PNR property, Garbo is inquiring the agency’s plans for the properties.
Garbo assured the PNR officials that the local government is willing to cooperate and assist the agency and other departments in the distribution of the property.
The mayor said that city planning officer Rosann Paquia was designated to take charge of all coordination and communication with the PNR regarding the LGU’s proposal.
“It is but our foremost aspiration that no Mabalaqueño shall be an informal settler in Mabalacat,” Garbo told the PNR executives.
https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1804529
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