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| Dumb and Dumber By Antonio C. Abaya Written Sept. 30, 2004 For the Philippines Free Press, October 09 issue Which idiot comes up with these dumb ideas? And why do our political leaders accept and adopt these dumb ideas? �Dumb� refers to the Pabahay sa Riles housing (kuno) program adopted by the Ramos Government in the mid-1990s under which the Philippine National Railway�s (PNR�s) right-of-way along its tracks, from Caloocan City to San Andres in Manila was turned over, for the proverbial song, to the usual crony corporation, in this case the New San Jose Builders (NSJB), on the pretext that the crony corporation will build housing for the army of squatters that have proliferated on both sides of the PNR tracks. (After R-II Builders and Smokey Mountain, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago should look into NSJB and the Pabahay sa Riles. The contract also gave NSJB the option to build an elevated expressway above the PNR tracks from the Makati boundary to a point near the PNR�s Tutuban station in Tondo, which would have duplicated a long stretch of the elevated expressway already awarded to the Citra Corp, a still-to-be-built continuation to Balintawak of its Bicutan-to-Buendia skyway.) �Dumber� refers to the reported plan of the Arroyo Government to now sell to the squatters themselves those parts of the PNR right-of-way that have not been occupied by the NSJB�s ugly tenements. This is the direct result of hiring foreigners as consultants, in this case the Peruvian social scientist Hernando de Soto, who are not familiar with the background details of the project or the wider ramifications of their recommendations. It is one of De Soto�s pet theories that if squatters were sold the land which they occupy, they would acquire bankable capital that they can use to secure loans and thus improve their standard of living. This idea may make sense in a wide squatter area, such as the Fabie estate in Paco, but does not make much sense in a narrow strip of land, only 10 to 30 meters wide, where the squatters� hovels measure no more than 15-20 square meters in floor area. (Isn�t it more sensible to move these squatters to volunteer-built dignified housing and then organize them into manufacturing co-operatives to fabricate products for which there is a real demand, as I have proposed? See my article �The Co-op Solution� of Sept.28.) Which stupid bank will lend on such a tiny collateral? And even if government banks were to do so as part of a social program, how much loan can a squatter possibly get for his miniscule property? Probably just enough for some heavy drinking with the barkada over two weekends. Or one make-or-break wager at the jueteng table or at a cockfight derby. Besides, an eyesore sold to the squatters will remain an eyesore forever. But the bigger loss to the government and the millions of commuters in Metro Manila would be the possibility of ever solving the metro�s horrendous traffic and pollution problems if the PNR�s right-of-way were sold away, as the Arroyo Government plans to. When the Pabahay sa Riles was first proposed in or around 1995, I opposed it in my column in the Philippine Star. I wrote that building apartment blocks only five meters away from an operating rail line was stupid and was not done in any country that was run by people who had any common sense. With rows of apartment blocks only five meters away, the possibility of catastrophic derailment would be high if locomotives and coaches were to jump the tracks, as they sometimes do, and plow into those apartment blocks. Of course, slower speed limits can be set for rail traffic, as has apparently been done, to avoid that possibility, but this would mean the trains must run even slower than their average speed then of only 18 kph. This also means that this valuable strip of land, with apartment blocks standing a mere five meters from the tracks, can never be used for a high-speed commuter rail line that can traverse the north-south axis from Caloocan to, say, San Pedro de Tunasan or Muntinlupa. What a waste of valuable resources. Such a high-speed north-south commuter rail line would have made it feasible to ban provincial buses from entering Metro Manila. Bus passengers would be required to get off at terminals in Caloocan and San Pedro de Tunasan, and transfer to commuter trains that would take them inside the metro area. That would have removed 6,000 road-hogging and polluting provincial buses from the metro streets, thus easing traffic congestion, lessening urban pollution, and reducing the daily commute hours of millions of harried commuters and motorists. 70% of the air pollution in Metro Manila is blamed on diesel-powered buses and jeepneys. At the same time that the Pabahay sa Riles was being pushed, Victor Lim, then chair of the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), proposed the building of a subway under the PNR right-of-way, from Caloocan to Villamor-Fort Bonifacio. I eagerly supported this idea and even proposed that it be extended to Muntinlupa. This was, to me, the most sensible idea ever proposed for significantly addressing the traffic and pollution problems of Metro Manila. There were two main arguments against a subway line: cost and flooding. The cost of digging a subway tunnel is indeed high if it is a deep one (such as in Moscow or London) and a tunnel boring machine has to be used. But if the subway is no more than seven meters deep and the hole is dug using the cut-and-fill method, the cost is not much higher than that of the massive concrete elevated carriageway of the LRT-1, a Spanish engineering firm interested then in the subway calculated. As for fears of flooding during the rainy season, the Channel Tunnel between France and the UK, and the Hong Kong cross-harbor tunnel are under water 24-hours day, 365 days a year, and so are the cross-river portions of the subways in Manhattan, London, Paris, San Francisco, Stockholm and many other cities. Bangkok, which is partly below sea level, and St. Petersburg, which was built on a swamp, have operating subway systems. But despite my many articles against Pabahay sa Riles and in favor of Vic Lim�s subway idea (which, I understand, were discussed at Cabinet level), President Ramos decided for Pabahay and thereby missed the chance to do something commonsensical to solve two practical problems, traffic and pollution, simultaneously. Why would a trained engineer (like FVR) opt for the impractical and the unsafe (like building apartment blocks five meters away from an operating rail line?) Why else but politics? At that time FVR was angling for a constitutional amendment to allow him to run for a second presidential term, and he needed the help of the politicians, among them then Rep. Sonny Belmonte, majority owner of the Star where I was writing my critique of Pabahay and the real power in or behind the corporation (NSJB) to whom the PNR right-of-way was awarded. To his credit, Sonny did not fire me for my critical views on his project. But he did try, unsuccessfully, to talk me out of my objections. Looking at the Pabahay sa Riles now, ten years after the brouhaha, I am saddened at what a total waste it has been. The apartment blocks, poorly designed and shabbily built to begin with, are only one step away from becoming medium-rise slums. Supposedly built to provide housing for squatters, most of the occupied flats have air-conditioning units, which real ex-slum-dwellers cannot afford to own or use. There are tenements between San Andres and President Quirino Ave., and probably elsewhere along the kilometers-long right-of-way, that have apparently been abandoned: there are no occupants and the glass window panes are all broken. The old PNR station at Plaza Dilao, which had been partially demolished to make room for a shopping mall, looks like Fallujah after an American air strike: it, too, seems to have been abandoned. Are Fidel Ramos and Sonny Belmonte proud of these shabby monuments to their cupidity? That�s the DUMB part; now the Arroyo Government wants to make it even DUMBER. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Dumb and Dumber� Dear Tony, Peace and all good. Thank you for sending me electronic copies of your articles. I find practically all of them very helpful. I will try to convince the President to take the measures you are advocating in your article "Dumb and Dumber." God bless! Archie Romeo J. Intengan, S.J, [email protected] Father Provincial, Society of Jesus October 04, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww It looks dumber is okay to you and me, but for PGMA it is a smart move. For a drowning woman, it will be a big help in alleviating our financial ills. She must think, the riles squatters have money she can tap. --Ogie Reyes, [email protected] October 04, 2004 MY REPLY. It is not a question of money that she can tap. It is just following blindly what foreign consultants, with emphasis on �foreign,� tell her. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww What else can you expect from people with small minds. Small ideas, of course. That�s Filipino ingenuity at its best. Cesar M. de los Reyes, [email protected] October 04, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony Antonio naman, papano kakuratahin ito? Ang mga suggestions mo walang pera para sa cronies! Jay Calero, [email protected] October 04, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (Copy furnished) we should consider the opinions of the people ("squatters") who are involved. Omar Escalante, [email protected] October 05, 2004 MY REPLY. But if you were to ask �the people�, meaning the squatters, they will always opt for immediate self-gratification, meaning land titles to the hovels they occupy. Most of them will not care to wait and move to more dignified volunteer-built housing, nor will they care to be organized into co-operatives to manufacture products. That will mean, horrors, working eight hours a day, six days a week. The path of least resistance always beckons and our trapos cultivate this mindset because they want the squatters� votes in the next elections. We need a visionary, credible leader to explain to �the people� where their long-term interests lie. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya: Thank you for sharing with us your analysis regarding the quandary we are in as to what can best be done about our fellow Filipinos living alongside the PNR tracks from San Andres to Caloocan. I had a migraine trying to grasp the background political fiasco you detailed. Like you, I would subscribe more to having them transfer to volunteer-built dignified housing on a wider land area like the Fabie estate in Paco or something similar. I am no expert as regards urban set-up planning or building houses. My concern is practical and medical. Living along the railways is dangerous living--the area has been known for fatal accidents, and the pollution... I like seeing children and hearing them around but where they are living now--in that area--gives me the chest pains. We do medical missions in different squatter areas there but this effort is miniscule compared to what ought to be really done there. It will take a good thinker and fearless doer (or several) to resolve this--loaded with principles. Best regards, Sal Teleg, M.D, [email protected] October 07, 2004 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |