By Lolo Bobby Mercado-Reyes

Bacon-Sorsogon (Bac-Sor) City, Philippines, and West Covina, California

T he following e-mail was sent to an e-forum where the author participates. The postings in the e-forum appear also in three yahoogroups.com, namely the Botomo, the NaFFAA-forum and Cepol (Cebu politics). The original thread was called: “Re: Graft and Corruption – Ano ang Magawa Natin?”

Here is a reproduction of Lolo Bobby’s input to the online discussion as addressed to “Dear Fellow Overseas Filipinos and Friends of the Philippines:”

QUOTE.

1.0    For too-many long years now, we, Overseas Filipinos (OF) and Overseas-Filipino workers (OFW), have been talking online on how to rid our homeland's government and even the private sector (NGOs and even church-based entities) of graft and corruption (G&C). But nothing really substantial has happened. We, Overseas-Filipino writers, have written so many articles on the how to, when, where and why, fight G&C but also to no avail.

2.0    Why the failure of the OF/OFW-led fight against G&C?

2.1    Because many want to change the entire nation overnight. It is impossible to change the entire national situation in just one election cycle or even in one decade (three election cycles). We have to change our own hometowns, if not home provinces first. Because G&C and politics are all local issues. The national government cannot be crooked if the local-government units (LGU) are fundamentally honest.

2.2    To achieve the changes, we must "reinvent" also the system. Like the system of paying salaries to public servants; decent wages must be paid that will enable public servants to live comfortably, so that they will not be tempted to receive bribes.

3.0    A Simple Solution.

3.1    We must select a single province as a pilot area to demonstrate clean-and-honest governance. It is like selecting a single beachhead (like Normandy in France and Leyte in PHP during WWII) where our OF/OFW "Liberation Army" will land and concentrate all its peaceful fire-power, human and financial resources and what not to the campaign.

3.1.1           My friends and I have selected the Province of Sorsogon (where I come from), as it is a small province (800,000 population, two congressional districts, 15 towns, including Bacon, and one city); it is one of the poorest provinces but it is strategically located (southern end of Luzon and jumping-off point to Samar and the Visayan islands). We will attract national attention and cooperation if we can perform an Economic Miracle in less-than three years by eliminating G&C in our pilot province, as it is estimated that more-than 70% of the provincial and municipal budgets and national-government assistance (pork barrel, etc.) are all wasted, if not pocketed by some politicians and their cronies.

3.1.2           My clan is the original Nacionalista Party family in Sorsogon and we and our in-laws have produced three governors, two congressmen, several mayors and other LGU elected officials, aside from a constitutional-convention delegate and the first Sorsoganon Cabinet member and several undersecretaries. None of my political elders has been tainted with any G&C practice or indictment.

3.2    We will lead a movement called the "ReVOTElution of Hope," with the vow of turning a different EDSA Revolution; EDSA shall become the acronym for "Economic Development and Social Advancement." The bottom line is to make not only the government but also the economy of the people, by the people and for the people.

3.2.1           With an OF/OFW-led provincial government, we will also undertake three other revolutions: Green, Blue (blue-water) and Wireless. We have written so many articles on our socioeconomic platforms as part of a 25-year development program, as found in the Revotelution Section (http://www.mabuhayradio.com/www-revotelution-com/) of our website, the www.mabuhayradio.com.

3.2.2           There are other specific project descriptions of the "ReVOTElution of Hope" as found in a series of articles, as may be accessed in this fifth part: http://www.mabuhayradio.com/health-and-medicine/how-sorsogon-can-be-the-botanical-and-natural-product-medicine-capital-of-the-philippines-if-not-of-southeast-asia

3.2.3           But our ReVOTElution is not all parochial or local in scope, as our Sorsogon experiment is just part of a broader BLeSSED (Bicol, Leyte, Samar and Sorsogon Economic-Development) Program. This means that after we establish the beachhead in Sorsogon on July 1, 2016 (new revised target date), we slowly turn to the twin regions (V and VIII), to expand our market and develop regional projects.

3.2.4           All the socioeconomic projects, plans and programs will be treated like items in a conveyor-belt assembly plant. This means that when all the favorable factors and requirements are in place, long-term projects can become medium-term programs and medium-term goals can become short-term endeavors, if not immediate gains.

4.0    Specific Programs to Guarantee that from Day One (June 30, 2016), our OF/OFW-run organization will turn Sorsogon Province into an honest-and-clean operator of the ATIC Principles. (ATIC, as I coined in 2001 means "accountability, transparency, integrity and credibility".)

4.1    All financial transactions of the provincial government (bank accounts, contracts, checks issued by the Provincial Treasurer as countersigned by the Office of the Governor) will be available online; all financial documents such as contracts for roads, bridges, etc., and all provincial treasury warrants will be scanned and posted in the provincial website.

4.2    All pending and past contracts will be subjected to forensic audit by the Provincial Auditor, as may be aided by Filipino and Overseas-Filipino CPAs and private auditors.

4.2.1           There should not be any problem with any contract entered into by the OF/OFW-led provincial Administration, as the contract process will follow the ATIC principles and published online, and subjected also to forensic audit.

4.3    All provincial, municipal and city employees will be invited to join a cooperative that will manage at least one-fourth of the 4,000 hectares of abandoned or idle fish ponds in Sorsogon Province, with the profits shared by them. Employees of the national government -- from teachers to the police -- will be invited to join the said cooperative.

4.3.1           In nine months or less, the incomes from these aqua-culture operations are projected to double the take-home pay of the co-op members. In short, all public servants and the people that they are serving will be turned to stakeholders and not mere citizens or residents of the province, with the new Administration answering the people's question: "What's in it for me and for my province?"

4.3.2           The co-op of the public servants and the other co-ops organized for fishermen, farmers, laborers, students and even senior-citizens will be led into doing constructive projects – from reforestation, vegetable-and-other-cash-crop growing, trading, etc., etc., so that the average income of an ordinary family that participates in our economic program is tripled within the first 18 months of our OF/OFW-led provincial Administration. But this guarantee will be applied only to those who will gladly work and participate freely, as all the economic enterprises will be for the benefit of a Coalition of the Willing. But no stakeholder who is willing to work will be left behind.

4.3.3           All the public and private employees in the province and all the self-employed and members of the producers' or consumers' co-op will be invited to join a provincial credit union, which will also manage a 401-K plan for all of the gainfully employed. How the provincial government will generate its counterpart in the 401-K plan will be discussed in a separate document but it will all come from its share of tourism-oriented development projects (from operating a BOT-formatted international airport, cultural-and-gaming resorts, etc.), as may be financed by a consortium of OF, OFW and foreign and/or domestic investors.

4.3.4           As may be permitted by national laws, as found in the Code of Local Governments and other applicable regulations, all the provincial-government employees and the participating LGU employees or officials will be voluntarily sworn in as deputies of the Provincial Sheriff, which will be run like the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office. All accusations against any public employee (as full-time or part-time employee of the Provincial Sheriff's Office) will be dealt with in a court martial, with a jury system deciding the case in 60 to 90 days, as described in this article, http://www.mabuhayradio.com/reinventing-the-philippines/reinventing-the-philippine-criminal-justice-system

4.4    Illegal gambling such as jueteng, sakla and other forms of illegal betting will cease by Day One (June 30, 2016) of our Administration.

4.4.1           As alternatives to some people's "addiction" to gambling, our Administration will support all the churches (on rotation basis on the participating sects) hold daily bingo games coupled with weekly, if not, daily, raffles of cash prizes. A medical program, however, will be launched to combat addiction to gambling and other vices such as illegal drugs, alcohol, tobacco and other social evils.

4.4.2           All the planned cultural-and-gaming resorts will accept only foreign currency to gamble in their casinos, thereby stressing that the provincial government is not pushing gambling to its stakeholders and the public in general.

5.0    Incentives to Public Servants and Private Employees to Remain Honest and Scandal-free.

5.1    The new OF/OFW-led Provincial Government will guarantee to its stakeholders (read, citizens, residents and workers in the province) access to affordable housing, basic preventive care in its HMO operations, student-loan funds and other benefits that are feasible and sound from the economic viewpoints and as permitted by national and provincial laws or regulations.

5.1.1           All of these benefits will be forfeited by any public servant or private employee found guilty of participating in G&C schemes and their 401-K account being subjected to repaying any damages that may be determined by a court of law or the jury of the court-martial system.

5.2    The biggest incentive to honest and ably-performing government is best guaranteed by very-honest provincial-and-municipal government employees led by an extremely-honest governor, who will govern to make a long-lasting legacy and not make money at the expense of the public.

Unless you have better ideas, it is suggested that readers of this e-mail join the "ReVOTElution of Hope" by sending a private e-mail (at mediabcla@aol.com) to its prime mover. We have of course to improve this conceptual framework of approach and the socioeconomic plans, so as to make them more practical and enforceable within the bounds of Philippine law and the laws of the countries where the OF and the OFW participants are domiciled or working. UNQUOTE. # # #

By Roberto Reyes Mercado

Filipino Writers Can Write about Changing Finally the Filipino Character Because We Have Many Tools to Advance the Cause

T his story, which is a series of e-mails and commentaries, began on April 8, 2001, at 2:53:53 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, when Ms. Zen Lopez sent e-mails to Filipino-American writers in Southern California. I was one of the recipients of the e-mail.

Ms. Lopez said in her media advisory:

QUOTE.

"I still find each day too short ...
    for all the thoughts I want to think,
        all the walks I want to take,
            all of the books I want to read,
                and all of the friends I want to see."
                                        John Burroughs

It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Edgar Soller.

Edgar passed away Thursday, April 5, 2001, at 8:30 pm Los Angeles time. His wife, Zaida, was with him. He is now with the Lord. May his soul rest in peace, Amen.

Cards, letters and donations can be mailed to:
Zaida Soller
1323 Hallwood Court
Upland, CA  91786
USA
e-mail: kareena@worldnet.att.net (Daughter, Sunshine's email) UNQUOTE.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the now-defunct yimby.com, the forerunner of this website. We thought to reprint it, as it contains still lessons for Filipino Americans, especially the members of the Fil-Am working press.
In the e-mail, Ms. Lopez also provided the funeral arrangements.

Bobby Reyes Replies on Behalf of the MBC

Roberto Reyes Mercado replies on April 11, 2001, for and on behalf of the Media Breakfast Club (MBC) of Los Angeles, California:

QUOTE.
To the Family of the late Edgar Soller:

We at the Media Breakfast Club will include Edgar Soller in the invocation portion of our 505th breakfast meeting, which will be held today from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at the Social Hall of the FACLA in Temple St., Los Angeles.

The Media Breakfast Club is the only Filipino-led media organization in the United States that remembers the Los Angeles-based Filipino and Filipino-American writers and media practitioners who have passed away. We will include Edgar Soller in the list of our dead comrades, so that we can continue to pray for them during Memorial Day, All Saints' Day, Christmas, New Year and their death anniversaries. We also established in 1999 this practice of remembering the dead members of the Filipino-American Fourth Estate of Los Angeles at the annual Christmas party tendered for the media by the Philippine Consulate General.

Please accept our heartfelt condolences in your hours of grief. Some of us in the Media Breakfast Club will visit with you during the wake and join you at the interment.

With our prayers,

The Officers and Members of the Media Breakfast Club

PS: And thank you, Zen Lopez, for letting us know of Edgar's passing away.
UNQUOTE.

A Ms. Lydia Makes a Sarcastic Comment . . .

L ydia (not her real name) was one of the recipients of Zen Lopez's e-mail and of Roberto's reply that was sent to Ms. Lopez's e-mail list by BCC (Blind Copy). Lydia e-mailed in turn Roberto on April 14, 2001. She said:

 {xtypo_quote} That's commendable. To Bobby Reyes, if you only are as kind to living people, too ...–Lydia {/xtypo_quote}

R oberto replies to Lydia and to Jay of the Mayon eGroup. (Editor's Note: Please read Jay Caedo's comments and the other postings in the Mayon eGroups in the article entitled, Unmasking the Rich and Infamous Among Filipino Americans)

Dear Lydia and Jay:

Firstly, thank you, Lydia, for giving me the commendation. The Media Breakfast Club (MBC) started praying for its members who died in 1994. Then we decided to pray also for our fellow Los Angeles-based Filipino-American writers and media practitioners who have passed away, even if they died prior to the founding of the MBC or even if they refused to join it in their lifetime. Because we thought that politics should not be part of the world of the dead. In other words we decided to pray for our dead comrades because we felt that only in death could Filipino writers be united. Because we are so divided while alive that there are actually four Filipino-American media organizations in Southern California (three press clubs and the MBC).

I am not sure what you mean by the phrase, "kind to living people."

If you, Lydia, consider my frankness as a writer and as a friend as being unkind, then perhaps your thinking comes as a result of the supposed flawed character of the typical Filipino or Filipino American. The average Filipino considers it unkind for one to tell the community of what ails its people, especially its leaders. It is a "No, No," among Filipinos to publicize or display in public the dirty linen of the community. Filipinos, or for that matter, Filipino Americans, just act meekly in front of their leaders or friends that they may be accusing – for instance of corruption or dishonesty – and they would just talk behind the leader's or friend's back, as a way of protest.

If you have noticed, I have been waging a crusade – full time for almost a decade now – of trying to change the character of the Filipino. Because sadly in the Philippines, and even in the Filipino-American community, character often does not count. And I don't select targets, be they be bishops in the Philippine Catholic Church, Philippine tourism secretaries or community leaders in Southern California or at the National Federation of Filipino-American Associations (NaFFAA) headquarters in Washington, DC. For as long as I see corruption, lack of accountability and/or abuse of discretion or indiscretion, I use the power of the pen, nay, the word processor and now the computer, in unmasking the perpetrators and in demanding reforms and penalties for those who take advantage of the kindness of the Filipino people. When I started my crusade I was labeled as a "crazy SOB, a mad troublemaker who was a solitary voice in the wilderness . . ."

But I persisted. I self-published a political novel in December 1993 and called it, "One Day in the Life of a Filipino Sonovabitch." If you have not seen its cover, I had the faces of Ferdinand Marcos, Ninoy Aquino, Imelda Marcos and Cory Aquino on it. (You have to read it to know that the Filipino leaders in the cover were not the SOB referred to in the novel.) I started giving the Philippine tourism secretaries a citation or prize called the "Oscar S. Tupido Award." Because I adopted the motto of the American literary legend, Jessica Mitford. Her motto said: "While I cannot change the world, I can embarrass the guilty."

At the start of the crusade I was just photocopying my essays and handing them out at the MBC meetings or mailing them to friends. Many Filipino-American publications refused to print my essays and commentaries. Then my son equipped me with a computer and the AOL as the ISP. Then in September 1999 we launched the Yimby.com (now the MabuhayRadio.com). Subsequently the (now-defunct) Diario Veritas of San Diego (CA), the Philippine Time (now called the Fil-Am Weekly MegaScene of Chicago (IL) and the Philippine Sentinel of Houston (TX) are periodically printing my articles. The Filipino Express of Jersey City (NJ) has invited me also to send to them my articles and materials.

{xtypo_quote} Editor’s Note: Bobby Reyes was forced to fold up the yimby.com when its webmaster, Bill Saunders, died and he took to his grave the passwords for the domain name, as registered with Register.com, and its Internet service provider. The MabuhayRadio.com continues the tradition established by the yimby.com. {/xtypo_quote}

If WE, or at least a majority of our fellow writers, friends and associates, work together perhaps WE can indeed change the character of the Filipino in a shorter time. Perhaps we can change for the better the character of our people in one generation, instead of two to three generations.

I think that my crusade is getting a lot of support. Remember when Lourdes A. Ongkeko, the president of a press club "expelled" me (without any hearing or cause) from the organization in 1992?  I was kicked out because I demanded that she issue audited financial reports and show us the club's bank statements. No one among the 70 other members of the association stood up to protest my expulsion. But slowly many of the association members, including its founding president and former presidents, began questioning the club leadership. Eventually some of its former officers and members who stepped into my shoes were also unceremoniously kicked out. Many more refused to renew their membership. Now the club is down to about 10 members (or even less) and has become the laughing stock of the community. The club cannot attract even the minimum number of members to fill up its 17 elective positions. The Media Breakfast Club that I organized in 1993 now attracts many of the former club members. Last Wednesday we held our 505th meeting and 21 Filipino-American media practitioners and more than 30 community leaders attended it.

While at the start of the crusade, many organizations literally avoided me for thinking wrongly that I was a troublemaker, now I am a member or officer of 35 associations. Sometimes I am embarrassed by my newly-found image as some kind of a folk hero. As you probably heard that my image as a crusader was helped by the libel case filed against me by Mrs. Ongkeko. I consider the libel case not only as my fulfillment as a writer but also as an expensive way to know the truth. (Editor's Notes: For the record and information of all, here are the details about the libel case. The Manila Bulletin was the first to publish on Sept. 25, 2000, the story about the libel suit filed against Roberto Reyes Mercado. The case is still pending as of April 15, 2001. Joseph Lariosa, the Chicago-based correspondent of the Manila Bulletin, wrote the story that landed on the Philippine publication's front-page. The Manila Bulletin also placed the libel story in its web site, with the address: http://www.mb.com.ph/MAIN/2000-09/MN092508.asp. (Page is no longer found or available.)

No Longer a Solitary Voice in the Fil-Am Wilderness

I think that I am no longer alone in this fight to change the character of the Filipino. This morning I was invited to deliver the closing remarks at the 52nd anniversary ceremony of the Filipino-American Community of Los Angeles (FACLA). The Filipino consul general and the only Filipino-American superior court judge in Los Aneles were the guests of honor. My wife and I received also certificates of appreciation for the financial and moral assistance that we extended the FACLA in 2000 and 2001.

I'm sorry for emulating today Carlos P. Romulo and becoming also an I-specialist. But there is hope that WE Filipino writers can write about changing finally the Filipino character because we have many tools to advance the cause. Unlike Jose P. Rizal, we have today the information highway and we can reach many more households that our national heroes at the turn of the 20th century could not even target in their dreams.

“Edgar Soller was buried yesterday, a Good Friday. Perhaps tomorrow, Easter Sunday, Edgar and all of our dead writer-friends may be able to persuade in the Next World the Risen Redeemer to usher in redemption for the Filipino-American media and the Filipino nation.” – Bobby Reyes

Remembering Edgar Soller, the Artist and “Bayanihan” Dancer

A nd talking back of our departed friend, Edgar Soller, I found that even in death the Filipino-American media could not be united. Aside from Oscar Jornacion and Aurora "Awee" Abayari, Edgar's bosses in the California Examiner (where Edgar was the editorial cartoonist), only Al R. Alicante and I were the only other members of the Filipino-American media present at the funeral service and interment. (Mr. Alicante writes also a column for the California Examiner and he is also an MBC member.)

Did you know that aside from being an outstanding cartoonist, graphics artist and painter, Edgar was also a member of the world-renowned Bayanihan Dance troupe? Edgar's fellow members in the Bayanihan Alumni Worldwide not only showed up at his funeral but also hosted the reception for the Soller Family and their friends who showed up to pay their last respect to their fallen colleague. Probably dancers have better rapport among themselves than writers do?

Jay Caedo of the Bay Area Comments

By the way, Jay Caedo of San Francisco, California, commented about a book project that I am doing. Jay, my blind fraternity brother, said in a posting at the Mayon eGroup about my forthcoming book, "Nice insight, as if we are reading here a 21st-century chapter of Rizal's Noli Me Tangere. Nothing has changed indeed; the ‘cancers’ a century ago still exist today . . ." Rizal, the foremost Filipino national hero, tried too to change the character of his countrymen. He did not live long enough to push his program.

Perhaps Edgar Soller's untimely death might serve now to unite our peers and eventually our people. For how can writers and journalists and book authors write about the unity of their people if they themselves cannot unite?

Edgar Soller was buried yesterday, a Good Friday. Perhaps tomorrow, Easter Sunday, Edgar and all of our dead writer-friends may be able to persuade in the Next World the Risen Redeemer to usher in redemption for the Filipino-American media and the Filipino nation. If this happens, perhaps the character of the Filipino will change for the better, in which case all of us will be kinder to the living and more so to the dead.

Happy Easter,
Roberto
April 14, 2001, at Los Angeles, California # # #

C ompleting a good railway system in the Philippines has always been controversial. It is as controversial as building a railway system in the car-dependent, if not car-crazy Los Angeles (California) area.

It is more-controversial now that the Arroyo regime is implementing the long-delayed Caloocan-Malolos line or Phase 1 of the project, which has been awarded to the China National Machinery and Equipment Corp. (CNMEG). It is funded by a $503-million loan, of which $421-million came from China’s Export-Import Bank. Critics of the Arroyo Dispensation have accused it of corruption in doing the project, especially with its Chinese-sourced financing.

Now China that demands another 300-million pesos on top of the PhP503-million deal that they have agreed as contract price in building the North Railway to San Fernando, Pampanga, where the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (in the former US Clark Air-Force Base) is located.

The railway deals have passed on from the Belgians to the Argentinians to the Japanese and to the Chinese contractors in the past 20 years. The various regimes from Macapal to Marcos to Aquino to Arroyo wanted to re-build and/or modernize the railway system but their track record remains off track (pun intended), if not a pipe dream. And as always, the plans continue to exist only on the drawing board. It will be a long time before train conductors announce, “All aboard . . .”

History of the Philippine railwaysIt was the British who built the Manila-to-Dagupan railways in 1880s. The Americans, who occupied the Philippines in 1898, used the railways to destroy the Philippine Republican forces during the Filipino-American War from 1899 to 1901. Gen. Antonio Luna's command post was a rail car running from Manila to Dagupan ahead of the pursuing American troops.

The American colonizers weren’t too keen on developing further the railways, preferring to build roads and highways. Filipino leaders complained that the American obsession with highways reflected a bias for the American automobile industry. Americans countered that Filipino politicians liked railroads because they could staff them with cronies and hand out tickets to supporters. But the American colonizers continued a commuter rail system for Manila with trolleys  called the "Tranvia," which the former Spanish regime started. World War II destroyed the "Tranvia" and it was never rebuilt.

And so it went from the turn of the century to the 1930s, when executive control of the government finally passed to Filipinos. The inauguration of the Philippine Commonwealth government in 1935 heralded railroad planning that Filipino leaders hoped could start in a big way. Seventy years ago, in May 1938, half a kilometer from Del Gallego town proper in the province of Camarines Sur, a golden nail was driven into a railroad tie, marking the meeting point of the south and north railroad lines. It marked officially the linking of Manila to Legazpi City by rail. But then in the 1970s, the Philippine National Railways (PNR) service to Legazpi City deteriorated. The expansion of the Southern Line from Albay to the Port of Matnog (Sorsogon  Province) became a perennial promise of politicians, who appropriated funds for the extension every year since 1955. To date, the line to Matnog remains a dream with hundreds of millions of pesos in appropriation misspent or pocketed by the politicians. Much ado was made about the Manila to Legazpi connection, and proposals began to be studied for a Mindanao railway.

Today’s ambitious North Rail and South Rail projects will merely revive passenger and freight services and bring them back to pre-martial law, and in some cases, even prewar levels. It was the President Ferdinand Marcos’ administration that put up Line 1 of Metro Manila’s overhead Light Rail Transit (LRT). It marked the return of a commuter rail system 40 years after the destruction of the Meralco “tranvia,” or streetcar (already in decline, however, prior to the war, with the expansion of its bus system).

The death of the Northern Rail System in LuzonIt took a generation after President Marcos to expand the LRT to what we see now. The system is already getting overwhelmed, with future expansion imperiled, among other reasons, by one city having so many different systems that can’t interconnect. (The Metro Rail Transit uses different coaches for its Lines 1 and 2 of the LRT and, therefore, can’t share coaches.)

But it was the Marcos regime that killed the railway lines from San Jose, Nueva Ecija, to Cagayan Valley in eastern Luzon and San Fernando, La Union, in western Luzon to Manila in the early 1980s. Then, it was the Aquino administration that hammered the last nail to the railways’ coffin by selling all the train stations and turning them into private malls.

In place of the railroad lines, the squatter colonies blossomed from the north to outer Manila and even in the tracks going to Bicol (Southern Line). An estimated 40,000 families live along the squatter colonies on the route of the railway.

But there is also innovation involved, most obviously in the Manila-to-Clark line of North Rail project. The difference between then and now, of course, is that we’re in an age of increasingly expensive gasoline, so the benefits of rail travel and train-cargo service to the economy should prove tremendous.

In 1988, Bobby M. Reyes (the editor of this website) and some of his friends proposed to the-then newly-elected Governor Juan G. Frivaldo and his Vice Governor, Cleto Arnedo, a proposal to privatize the Southern Line of the PNR with the Provinces of Batangas, Laguna, Quezon, Camarines Sur, Albay and Sorsogon owning 10% each with the remaining 40% being sold to a consortium of Overseas Filipinos and their foreign stakeholders. (Batangas has to be added since it has the country's oil refineries and several cement plants, and at that time, the Bicol Region did not have any.) Unfortunately, the new Sorsogon Provincial Government threw apparently the Reyes proposal to the waste basket.

Reyes endorsed also his Southern Railroad privatization plan to the Bicol River Basin Development Board but the then-President Cory Aquino decided to close it (the BRBDB).

The Manila-Legazpi rail service is a case in point that Reyes and Company wanted to save and reinvent. Its services came to an end because of flooding in 1975, although in 1985 it was briefly restored, but subsequently abandoned. If a locomotive ever manages to make the journey from Manila to Legazpi again, it will merely signal the restoration of the status quo circa 1970.

Editor’s Note: To read the Bicolnon’s humorous reaction to the change of name from Manila Railroad to the Philippine National Railways, please click on this link: The Bicolano Wit and Humor

The need for a Modern Railways System

B ut the Philippines needs a modern-and-efficient railways system. It could also revolutionize the movement of people and cargo, as the rail system is the cheapest form of transportation. It could cut down the number of extortionists on the highways and so forth. The same applies to the North, where Metro Manila’s vegetables have to pay both informal-and-formal toll fees.

Another reason is that eventually the world will run out of crude oil. The trains can eventually run on electricity, which can be produced from mini-hydro power-generating plants and other sources of Green Energy. This will help also in fighting Global Warming (Climate Change).

A study shows that a vegetable-and-rice cargo company passes 25 to 50 police, military, DENR and municipal checkpoints from Cagayan to Manila. And really, this is the harsh reality of transporting people and goods in the Philippines just like before. To get from point A to point B requires submitting to formal and informal extortion. There’s a reason the term “highway robbery” entered common use, and it’s the vulnerability of cargo and people to brigands and extortionists, both in and out of uniform.

Corruption is a way of life in the Philippines. So expect that the North railways line will cost as much as the government officials want it to be.

The Philippine Senate is investigating the transportation authorities. They will be asked to explain why the 32.1-kilometer segment of the North Rail Project will cost about P880-million per kilometer when the Senate starts inquiry into the railway project.

They will also have to explain why about 20,000 families, whether squatters or not, have been ordered to vacate their houses along the railway routes before the end of the year despite the fact that the relocation sites are generally not yet ready for occupancy in the absence of temporary shelters, water connections, electricity and other basic facilities. # # #

C ompleting a good railway system in the Philippines has always been controversial. It is as controversial as building a railway system in the car-dependent, if not car-crazy Los Angeles (California) area.

T hrough the efforts of Ms. Amina Rasul, former President Fidel V. Ramos has replied to a “love letter” that a Southern California-based coalition sent to the then Philippine President on Nov. 21, 1993. Well, it has taken 15 years, three months and 16 days for Mr. Ramos to reply. Ms. Amina is the chairperson of the Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy.

Counting next from May 20, 2006, when we sent another “love letter” to former President Ramos during his visit to Los Angeles, his reply came after two years, nine months and 25 days.

It is quite possible that until Ms. Amina Rasul brought it to the attention of Mr. Ramos, his staff then at the Office of the President and/or the Ramos Peace and Development Foundation never bothered to submit it to him for his perusal. But it is worth the wait, as former President Ramos replied in his own handwriting to a hardcopy edition of an article in the www.mabuhayradio.com entitled, Reinventing the EDSA into an “Economic-Development & Social-Advancement” Evolution 

We sent not only to then President Ramos our ideas on how to “reinvent” the EDSA Revolution but also how the Philippines could be able to repay its foreign debts and undertake fundamental structural reforms for the homeland. So far, only President Ramos has replied. Former Presidents Cory Cojuangco-Aquino and Joseph Ejercito Estrada and the incumbent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo have chosen to disregard all the coalition’s “love letters,” some of which are posted in the www.mabuhayradio.com. 

T oday, upon receiving an advance online copy of former President Ramos’ reply, this author sent an e-mail of acknowledgment and more. Here is another “love letter” to Mr. Ramos: 

March 16, 2009

His Excellency

Former President Fidel V. Ramos

Ramos Peace and Development Foundation

Makati City, Philippines

Through Ms. Mae Gaffud            

Deputy Executive Director 

Dear Your Excellency:

T