On vital public utilities, state policies are either incoherent or predatory

THE government decided on the fare increases for LRT1, LRT2 and the MRT 3 with lightning speed—then never wavered from that decision. The protesters raised very good points in the legal petitions to stop the fare increases but the points centered on what was publicly known: the insanity of imposing a fare increase despite the lousy, often dangerous, service offered by the decrepit trains. The MRT 3 is now one of the worst urban rail systems in the world, no thanks to the incompetent state agency that regulates and runs it.

What was not factored into the discussion was this. The government is now bent on taking full control of the MRT 3, the rail service that carries more than half a billion passengers a day, a captive market with room for immense and sustained growth.