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| Pasig River Ferry By Antonio C. Abaya Written Feb. 09, 2005 For the Philippines Free Press February 19 issue Harried commuters, who travel daily between Marikina City and Manila and have to suffer the congested roads and the polluted air, will soon have an alternative when ferry service along the Pasig River is inaugurated, supposedly by the end of 2005. Even if it is delayed by a few more months, as it likely will be, this is welcome news for thousands of commuters who presently waste hours of their daily lives stuck in traffic during morning and evening rush hours. The ferry service will be equipped with modern amenities such as air-conditioning, comfortable waiting areas, a ticketing system, scanners and metal detectors, comfort rooms, vending machines, and elevators for the disabled. The government will build the ferry stations, 13 of them, each one costing P3 to P4 million, and charge the ferry operators a fee every time they dock. Because of the modest investment from the government, this is a very doable project and should be given the priority that it deserves. The operation of the ferry will be in the hands of the private sector, as it should be. Six companies are interested in the project. Each vessel will cost about P5 million. Again, a very modest sum. A final list of operators would be known by March, said DOTC USec Agustin Bengzon. We hope this will not be made into a monopoly for anyone. This promises to be a winner for the Arroyo Government. The convenience, the comfort, the benign environment (away from the concrete jungle), will draw many riders who will relish being spared the daily crucifixion they suffer from the endless traffic jams and thick pollution in their current land-based commutes. There is also little possibility that this will suffer the same fate as the ferry that was tried on the same route decades ago. That ferry was not air-conditioned and thus passengers had to endure the odoriferous exhalation of a decaying and dying river. That ferry died from poor patronage. Air-conditioning should help mitigate that. But local governments should also be required to do their share by making their riverfronts clean of garbage, untreated sewage and squatters. Entrepreneurs could be encouraged to build riverfront enclaves for dining and leisure activities that will draw in foreign and domestic tourists and generate jobs and taxes for local governments. This early there are already plans to extend the ferry service to the towns that dot the shores of Laguna de Bay. This would be a logical next stop. Before the advent of the automobile and the building of roads around the lake, I understand (I wasn�t born yet), travel and the transport of goods to and from Manila and the communities of Laguna de Bay was by flat-bottomed barges called cascos, propelled by bamboo poles. You can see these in period photographs displayed in museums and coffee table books of that bygone era. I actually met someone in 1961 � in far-away Hamburg (Germany), of all places � who had vivid memories of the casco trip he took in 1928 to Pagsanjan (pronounced, in the German manner, as Pagsanyan). When I was gallivanting around Europe on my Vespa motor scooter and ran out of money in Hamburg, I was rescued by a German girl whom I had known in university in the US. I knew she was from Hamburg, but I didn�t have her address, so I asked the polizei in the Hamburg Rathaus (city hall) to locate her for me. In a word, I was invited to spend the weekend (until I could claim some money from home at the American Express, which opened the following Monday) with her and her family, during which her father reminisced, in German, about his side-trip to Manila and Pagsanyan, when he was on his way to join the German embassy in Tokyo in 1928. But I digress. The extension of the river ferry to the towns around Laguna de Bay, such as Los Banos, Calamba, Pagsanjan, Jalajala, Morong, etc would be a godsend to domestic tourism and would encourage such leisure activities as weekending on houseboats (as in the lakes of Kashmir) and fine-dining at restaurants in the middle of the lake (which is only 12 feet deep at its deepest). The likely success of the river ferry will doom the proposed subway under the Pasig River, as the ferry operators will certainly object to the disruption of their services to give way to the massive construction activities that will be needed to build a subway on or under the Pasig riverbed. ***** NEW AT THE TAPATT WEBSITE. For those who want to know what or who Hernando de Soto (the new Poster Boy of the Arroyo Government) is all about, we have three articles on this new secular saint in the Reference Material section of www.tapatt.org. The De Soto Delusion, by John Gravois; Demystifying Hernando de Soto, by Roy Culpeper; and The Mystery of Hernando de Soto, by Luis Vasquez Medina. Tapatt also welcomes the columns of Former Tourism Secretary, Gemma Cruz-Araneta, who will write on tourism, urban development, history and Mexico (where she studied all three disciplines. ***** OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Pasig River Ferry� Hi, Tony, The ferry idea is certainly noble. Let us just hope the operators are able to solve the dual problem of low draft and low vertical clearance. What happened before is when it is low tide, the draft of the ferry becomes too deep and when it is high tide, the height of the ferry exceeds the vertical clearance of the bridges. There is of course the additional problem of sunken barges that the ferry might collide with. I trust Mr. Bengzon, a family friend of my parents, knows this being a barge operator himself. As to whether the problems can be solved by building a specially designed ferry, I just am not sure. Have a nice day! Bobby Tordesillas, [email protected] February 17, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Wow! That is a welcome change. Sana naman we would be able to maintain it and also take notice of the squalid banks of Pasig River so that it can be improved. There are so many retaining walls on the banks that are collapsing already, presenting a safety hazard to person and navigation. I befriended a man called Fred Hashim during my younger days. I mean I was in high school and he was in his late 60's. Pretty odd pairing but I met him thru amateur radio along with some notables of that time. Dr. Romy Castaneda, Mr. Juan Tupaz and Jose Mari Gonzalez to name a few. Anyway, he knew my grandfather and he told me of the casco rides from Pililla where they were, "naggagapas ng damo" to feed the horses of the Americans quartered at Murphy. Those were my recollections of the stories told by my olds. I was so blessed to have such patient men tell me their stories, some of them pretty ribald, and I saw the twinkle in teir eyes of days long gone. jojo vicencio, [email protected] February 17, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Antonio Abaya, The Arroyo government deserves the credit and I applaud loudly for coming out with a very cost-effective project to help reduce the traffic congestion in Manila and neighbouring cities. I am sure that if a race is done to test how fast a person can go from Marikina to Manila, considering the bumper to bumper situation in our main arteries, the ferry system will win. Call it feng shui or superstition, but can they not make it 12 or 14 ferry stations? We don't have a thirteen floor in our building. I guess the owner and manager are Jewish. Thanks. Sincerely yours, Emil Diaz, Jr., [email protected] Vancouver, Canada, February 17, 2005-02-26 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony Thanks for this and all the other great articles, Tony! I have a confession to make i have been an Abayaphile since the mid fifties when I had a slight detour and ended up in the Ateneo with the Class of '55 sans ERAP! JayJay Calero, [email protected] February 18, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, I have visited your website and I am pleased to know that there are people like you who spearhead such a rather noble cause for our country. I have also read and reread the Mission Statement of Tapatt and I share the sentiments you have poured in there. I just hope that your website and your organization for that matter, would really flourish and would involve more and more people to you cause. I personally believe in the greatness of the Filipino as an individual but if I look around, it laments me to note that a lot of scalawags in our government just do not seem to get it - I mean, when can we ever put this country in the world's economic landscape when our leaders are born out of a very defective system altogether. I live in Makati and because of my new job, I had to know more about my companies business the other day by surveying a number of pharmacies in Metro Manila. Needless to say, I have never been to Paco Manila and its equally miserable neighboring places. When a person sees those dirty markets on the streets and lots of people who seem as miserable as their environment, one can easily conclude there is indeed something wrong in this society. When can we ever change and when can our leaders propel the necessary changes! Anyways, I just wanted to congratulate you for your excellent articles and for leading a noble cause. May your tribe grow geometrically very soon! Sincerely, Norman Tilos, [email protected] February 18, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Thank you for this. Very interesting. Regards, Brian Harber, [email protected] February 19, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (Copy furnished by [email protected]) Tita Angie, A very interesting concept. I hope that it will be successful. I still say that cleaning the river should be number one priority before any river ferry service can be successful. Who would want to smell or look at the river in such filthy and smelly condition? Jaime Lim, [email protected] February 19, 2005 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |