Rehabilitation of rail tracks to Bicol region underway

THIS IS in reaction to Gilbert Daroy’s editorial cartoon showing the Bicol Express stopped dead in its tracks by “railroad disrepair.” (Inquirer, 8/3/11) Philippine National Railways (PNR) completely agrees with Daroy: the rail tracks connecting Manila and the Bicol region are not in perfect condition and need a lot of improvement.

However, we would like to make it clear that it was never the intention of the PNR to hype up the re-opening of the Bicol Express last June 29. In fact, the re-opening was marked without much fanfare; it was held with a simple test-commercial run at discounted fares, more for the purpose of getting objective feedback and suggestions on how to improve our operations. The test run was also conducted to detect problem areas which could only be done with our trains going on soft commercial operation.  We believe that the hype surrounding the revival of Bicol Express was generated more by excited Bicolanos and patrons.

Also consider the considerable damage inflicted by typhoon “Juaning,” on the Bicol region, which forced us to temporarily stop our operations for a few weeks.

We believe that majority of the public appreciates PNR’s effort to revive the Bicol Express after almost its decade of non-operation and neglect. We thus recognize the challenge to rehabilitate the aging railway system, given the meager resources of the PNR.

Inasmuch as we have high hopes for this humble project, we ask both private and public sectors for support to ensure the success of this undertaking, which would subsequently benefit, not just the Bicolanos but the country as well in terms of economic activity, tourism boost and job generation.

—PAUL DE QUIROS,

Philippine National Railways