The research, however, did not intend to end its close scrutiny of mass transit plans and its contexts with a plan to end all plans. Instead, it will serve as a tightly-knit series of academic critiques of the current mass transit predicament in Metro Manila.<\/span><\/p>\n The problem of railway transportation is a staple news item in mainstream media reduced to bite-size information\/sound bites that typically reinforce standard beliefs and the status quo—that the railway transportation problem is indeed a problem, that funding will never be enough, that competing interests will never arrive at a resolution in the interest of the public, etc. This project aimed to document the planning history of railway transportation planning in the country to address this knowledge gap across all stakeholders and hopefully steer public dismay, not towards more finger pointing, but a systematic and grounded understanding of railway transportation planning and broadly how lives and landscapes have been impacted by and continue to impact on the best-laid plans of land and transportation bureaucrats and technocrats as attested by its history.<\/span><\/p>\n 1<\/sup> Prof. Marco Stefan Lagman, from UP Geography Department, served as Co-Project Leader from October 2015 to February 2017. Keith Gerard Daguio served as his research assistant from October 2015 to April 2017.<\/p>\n The history of Metro Manila\u2019s railway system can be better appreciated if all these implemented projects and proposed plans are rendered visually through maps, along with the demographic and land use changes in Metro Manila and nearby towns. At present, many opinions from politicians, policy-makers and citizens about Metro Manila\u2019s mass transit problems do not seem to be based on the history of the actual rail projects and the plans drawn up decades ago that were never implemented. This project aimed to create a visual rendering of the rail projects that have been constructed as well as the mass transit projects that could have been implemented. In relating all layers of mass transport, demographic, and land use change data in map form, the project could give a more nuanced idea of how the implemented and planned rail projects sought or failed to address the needs of an expanding metropolis. 2<\/sup>Jonathan Villasper served as Senior GIS Specialist from October 2015 to February 2017.<\/p>\n Metro Manila\u2019s transportation system is one that has been described as very inefficient, leading to billions of economic losses each day. This inefficiency is due mainly to the poor planning and development of the transport system, particularly the public mass transportation. This project aimed to conduct the technical review and analysis of transport plans and projects in Metro Manila in the last 40+ years in the hopes of providing a framework for planning and development of mass transit systems for Metro Manila and beyond (Mega Manila).The project employed the co-benefits approach in assessing the impacts of transport systems to air quality, fuel consumption, safety, traffic congestion, noise, and others. The review and analysis performed were in the context of the principles of environmentally sustainable transport for an inclusive, energy-efficient, and low emission\/carbon transport.<\/span><\/p>\n This project aimed to offer to the public voices and faces of people who, most of whom, have worked only in the background, away from the political limelight, yet were instrumental in crafting the plans that led to the current mass transit system in Metro Manila. The oral history interviews elicited information and experiences that not only supplemented official public mass transit planning documents and histories, but served as stand-alone narratives with their own intrinsic value as they relate to economic planning, planning history, development of transport engineering in the Philippines, and the urbanization of Metro Manila. Moreover, the audio-visual history in the form of a video documentary addressed the public need for compelling stories. It tells the story of the competing ideas and interests at work in the railway transportation phenomenon in Metro Manila that hitherto chart the shape and speed of things to come. <\/span><\/p>\n 3 <\/sup>Jesse Rey Baban (MA Media studies student) and Ruben Jeffrey Asuncion (MA History student) were the first research assistants for the oral history component.<\/p>\nAcknowledgement<\/strong>
\nThis work was funded by the University of the Philippines System Emerging Inter-Disciplinary Research Program (OVPAA EIDR-06-008).<\/h5>\nDr. Ricardo Jose<\/strong>, Program Leader, UP Third World Studies Center and History Department
\nElinor May Cruz<\/strong>, Program Manager, UP Third World Studies Center
\nHannah Joy Germinal<\/strong>, Administrative Assistant<\/h5>\n
\nProject 1. A history of the railway systems from colonial Manila (1879) up to the present Metropolitan Manila (2014) as gleaned from plans and the built infrastructures<\/h4>\n
Prof. Karl Poblador<\/strong>, Co-Project Leader, UP History Department1<\/sup>
\nMiguel Paolo Reyes<\/strong>, Co-Project Leader, UP Third World Studies Center
\nRamon Bandong Jr<\/strong>. and Judith Camille Rosette<\/strong>, Research Assistants<\/h5>\n
\nProject 2: A GIS rendering of the evolution of the railway system in Metro Manila as well as those which were put into plan but remains unexecuted<\/h4>\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\nDr. Daniel Mabazza<\/strong>, Project Leader, UP Geography Department
\nJohnson Damian<\/strong>, GIS Specialist2<\/sup>
\nLeslie Dolalas<\/strong>, Research Assistant<\/h5>\n
\nProject 3: A critical transportation engineering review of the mass transit system in Metro Manila, focusing on railways<\/h4>\n
Dr. Jose Regin Regidor<\/strong>, Project Leader, UP National Center for Transportation Studies
\nDominic Aloc<\/strong>, Research Assistant<\/h5>\n
\nProject 4: An oral history on select bureaucrats, technocrats, and academics who were involved in planning, designing, funding, and building the Metropolitan Manila mass transit system and an audio-visual history of the railway systems of Metro Manila<\/h4>\n
Emerald Flaviano<\/strong>, Co-Project Leader, UP Third World Studies Center
\nJoel F. Ariate Jr.<\/strong>, Co-Project Leader, UP Third World Studies Center
\nIvy Dianne Olivan<\/strong>, Giselle Joyce Nadine de la Pe\u00f1a<\/strong>, and Manuel San Mateo IV<\/strong>, Research Assistants3<\/sup><\/h5>\n
\nContact information<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"