As we learn from Rizal, Pasig ferry an efficient mode of transport

May I refer to Neal H. Cruz’s column titled “Promote alternative means of transportation” (Opinion, 2/14/14), wherein he stated: “We are glad to read in Sunday’s Inquirer that the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) will revive the Pasig River ferry as suggested in a recent column….

“On weekends, the ferry may extend its service to the lakeshore towns around Laguna Lake for holiday trippers. Better access to them will hasten the development of the lakeshore towns which are isolated most of the time in spite of their closeness to Metro Manila.”

If I am not mistaken, former ambassador Jose Zaide has also suggested the revival of the Pasig River ferry service. And during the time of our national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal, not only ferryboats but steamships served as a means of transportation. In Rizal’s book “El Filibusterismo,” the first chapter’s opening paragraph (English translation) reads: “One morning in December the steamer ‘Tabo’ was laboriously ascending the tortuous course of the Pasig, carrying a large crowd of passengers toward the province of Laguna.  She was a heavily built steamer, almost round like the tabu [dipper], from which she derived her name.”

Readers of the “Fili” will note that members of high society, government officials and ordinary citizens used this mode of river transport. The steamer also carried domestic cargo.

At the mouth of Laguna Lake, which connects to the Pasig River, the passengers of Tabo were greeted by a “magnificent” view described by Rizal (as translated into English by Ambassador Leon Ma. Guerrero), thus: “The steamer was just then entering the lake and the view was really magnificent. Everyone was impressed. The beautiful lake, ringed by green banks and blue mountains, stretched out before them like an immense mirror in a frame of emeralds and  sapphires where Heaven might look at itself.  To the right a series of bays made graceful curves in the low shore, with farther on, half-blurred, the hook of Sugay; ahead, as a background, was Mount Makiling, majestic, imposing, crowned with light clouds; to the left, the island of Talim and the Susong Dalaga,  ‘the Maiden’s Breasts,’ with the soft undulations which had given its name.”

Cruz and former ambassador Jose Zaide should be congratulated for  advocating the revival of the ferryboat service in Pasig River as a means of  public transport, as it was in the days of  our national hero.  In Europe, the Rhine River is being used as means of public transport up to now—in addition to road, railway and air.

Let us also revive and modernize our railway system, the very same railway which the Englishman rival of Rizal for the heart of Leonor Rivera, engineer Henry Kipping, helped construct.

—RODOLFO A. ARIZALA,

former Philippine ambassador,

Santiago, Chile,

rodarizala@gmail.com