January 9, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Railways (PNR) is on track to reconnect Calamba, Laguna and Legazpi, Albay this year, but efforts to revive the old line to Manila have to wait due to lack of funding.
The PNR is working on reinstating the tracks between Southern Tagalog and Bicol Region in the hope of reopening a train service from Laguna to Albay before the year ends.
Transportation Undersecretary Jeremy Regino said the PNR has relocated its rolling stock to the provinces following the shutdown of rail services in Metro Manila.
Given this, the PNR has gained more trains to expand its Inter-Provincial Commuter (Calamba to Lucena, Quezon) and Bicol Commuter Train (Sipocot, Camarines Sur to Legazpi). The objective is to fix the tracks from Calamba to Legazpi to link them up in one line again.
“Within the year, the PNR will finish the entire line. What that means is it would go straight, and the PNR will use old trains (from Metro Manila) to serve Calamba to Legazpi,” Regino said in a radio interview.
However, the bad news for the Department of Transportation (DOTr) is that it will go on another year unsure whether the P175-billion PNR South Long Haul would ever push through.
The project seeks to construct a new railway from Calamba to Daraga, Albay, mostly following the old alignment of the Bicol Express.
Initially, the government was working with China on the financing of the project, but talks fell through on disputes in the interest rate Beijing wants to charge the Philippines.
Regino said the DOTr failed to secure enough funding in the 2025 General Appropriations Act to undertake the preparatory works for the PNR South Long Haul. Specifically, the project received only P250 million this year, making it challenging to acquire right of way (ROW).
“In a sense, we need the right of way and relocation (of informal settler families) to complete the preparatory works prior to a loan signing. Although the delay is far from being critical, we want to do the ROW early so it would no longer be a problem during implementation,” Regino said.
Currently, the government is eyeing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as financier of the project, although nothing is final yet, leaving the doors open for traditional funders like the Asian Development Bank.
Under the original plan, the PNR South Long Haul will deploy trains that can pace as fast as 120 kilometers per hour, bringing down travel time between Manila and Bicol to four hours.
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