Build the North-South Railway

LAST week, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reported that the government as soon as the end of this quarter may begin the first steps in the project tender process for a proposed 653-kilometer, $3.8 billion railroad connecting Manila with Batangas and Luzon’s southernmost point at Matnog, Sorsogon.

If the news elicited any reaction at all from the public, it was probably ambivalence. The enthusiastic proposal of grandiose projects that fail to even start happens so frequently, it’s almost a tradition.