Mindanao business leaders are one in saying that the Mindanao Railway project will be the most crucial government project that will chart the course of the country’s so-called “land of promise.”
Hence, it is understandable of the common denominator among Mindanao’s economic players’s minds these days is to see that project through knowing that the best opportunity to have it realized is now when the President is from Mindanao–the first in the history of Philippine politics. So cashing in on this notion while the man sitting in Malacañang is “one of us” is pretty much understandable. Historically, government priorities change everytime a new leader comes.
That is why business leaders want to get the project going before President Duterte’s term ends and the budget is ‘re-aligned’ as was practiced in past administrations.
Given that mindset, the administration is poised to deliver the project “whatever it takes.”
Whatever it takes meant tweaking the project and downgrade the plan. So from a dual track and electric train system, the project has been demoted to single track, diesel.
The Department of Transportation (DoTr) said costs were adjusted upward for the Mindanao Railway Project Phase 1 due to the need to traverse rolling terrain, while the rail line was downgraded to single track and non-electric to speed up implementation. The reason is that the approved project cost more than doubled to P82.9 billion from P35.9 billion previously because earlier studies had assumed that the rail line would cross flat terrain.
The downgrade, according to DOTr, is to ensure the ball is rolling soon and that the project may be ‘revised’ in the future. Hopefully, the downgrading of the project for purposes of just getting it going will not be a costly change in the long run. Otherwise, Mindanao will just end up with a second-rate railway system which may not be sustainable.
