On track and energy-efficient

It must be something genetic or just part of our nature as a people, but every time we have a constructive project at hand, we shoot ourselves on the foot with it.

Take the case of the Northrail Project, a fast and efficient mass transit system that will transport goods and passengers from Metro Manila to as far as La Union. Along the way, it will have as critical stopping points, former military bases converted into industrial, economic, and tourism estates like Fort Bonifacio, Clark Special Economic Zone (SEZ), Subic SEZ and Poro Point in La Union. The project has a lot of benefits, but even as the initial groundwork has begun, the inevitable protests, probes and nay sayings have began to rise like the proverbial swarm of hornets.

A major issue to those who protest is the lack of public bidding over the project. From what we gather, while this may be valid in other cases, it simply does not apply to the Northrail Project, which is part of a bilateral trade agreement between the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China (PROC). Under the Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Finance and the China Export Import Bank, a state-owned financing institution, the PROC agreed to loan us $400 million on the condition that they nominate the prime contractor of the project. In short, it’s part of the deal. And the financier is a Chinese government-owned bank, so the last thing they’ll do is inflate project costs at the expense of the state. That kind of behavior is rewarded with summary judgment.

Difficult as it may seem to those to whom cynicism is second nature, and conspiracy a perennial factor in every inked project agreement, I say, look at the realizable benefits. The Northrail project will link Metro Manila to Central and Northern Luzon in more ways than mere transportation. History will show that commerce, culture, lifestyles and even the manner of governance are shaped by the social and economic interactions brought about by fast and mass travel. Borders open, placid towns transform into bustling suburban centers, economies flourish as local inhabitants commute to far-located jobs, parochial mindsets expand to accommodate global views brought by the influx of culture bearers.

We need only look at our neighbors in Southeast Asia to realize how much efficient mass transport system contributes to a booming economy. Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore have rationalized their road and transportation system to favor speed, efficiency and bulk. Japan’s bullet train, brimming with passengers, can travel from Tokyo to outlying farm districts in a matter of minutes. Hong Kong’s MTR will take you from Central, their much more cosmopolitan version of our Makati to the New Territories in a matter of a few station stops.

Then there are the built-in advantages of the Northrail project in terms of environmental impact, land use, safety, and energy consumption. According to the Environmental Impact Assessment by a NEDA-approved Study, the cost of pollution and greenhouse effect, among others, is 100 times greater for road transport like buses and jeepneys than for rail transport. Land on which the Northrail will travel is 15 meters at most, being a double-track line instead of single track like the existing PNR system. A two-lane motorway is 28 meters or almost double that of rail, yet the roadway carries a lot less passengers and freight. Safety wise, there are 40 times more road transport victims than rail transport victims in recent years. Then there are goods like chemicals with high toxicity whose danger to people and environment is largely reduced when shipped by rail rather than road transport. Finally, Northrail is two to three times more energy-efficient than road transport for both passenger and freight.

Given all these benefits, it’s difficult to understand the hemming and hawing, the dilly-dallying on a project that’s on the right track.

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SPEAKING OF ENERGY, we’re in a fine mess these days. Weekly increases of fifty centavos a liter for gasoline until the last week of July has wrecked the budget of the motorist. We all know the cause: trouble is a-brewing in the Middle East, that patch of land that has cornered 90 percent of oil, and all of us gas-dependent countries, the United States included, are feeling the pinch. We went through this in 1974 when OPEC first flexed its muscles, but it seems oil crises only make us put our noses closer to the grindstone instead of going determinedly for a permanent, alternative solution.

One lasting remedy is the use of renewable and sustainable sources of energy. More specifically, it specifies blending ethanol with gasoline and coco methyl ester (CME) with diesel, which will reduce importation of petroleum products and increase our foreign exchange savings.

According to Bukidnon congressman Juan Miguel Zubiri, the principal author of the House version of the bill, blending gasoline with five percent ethanol will allow us to save about P40 billion annually. The resultant blend is also better for our air and improves engine performance. More importantly, ethanol and CME are biodegradable, renewable, and locally available.

The last point has several ramifications, all good from an economic standpoint. CME is sourced from coconut, while ethanol comes from corn, sugar, and cassava, crops that are planted in more than five million hectares of our agricultural lands. We have the land, the right soil, and climate to grow the fuel sources. At the same time, factories must be put up to process ethanol and CME to add to those already in operation so countryside labor, which is plentiful, will be harnessed. Labor that otherwise will migrate to already congested cities will be employed at the source.

But is the volume of ethanol and CME needed enough to create seismic changes in terms of employment and infrastructure construction? As far as CME is concerned, if Congress mandates a one percent blend with diesel, projected demand for it in 2006 alone will be 40 million liters. One of the firms producing CME, Chemrez, Inc., is willing to invest P1.5 billion more to raise its production capacity. The projected demand for bioethanol, on the other hand, would necessitate the construction of 25 dedicated bioethanol plants, each with a minimum capacity of 30 million liters per annum or a total of 750 million liters. One ethanol plant costs P1.5 billion to construct. For 2006, two bioethanol plants are being put up, one in San Carlos, Negros Oriental and another in Bukidnon, Zubiri’s province.

Diesel being the lifeblood of our public transport system, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo directed relevant government agencies to research other feedstock that could be used as biodiesel to ensure sustainability of the fuel program. One such plant is Jatropha Curcas or "tuba-tuba," a non-edible plant that is drought-resistant and can easily be planted. In a March 2006 study by the Department of Science and Technology, potential areas for jatropha plantation in the Philippines is at two million hectares. If farmers practice intercropping jatropha with edible crops or in field boundaries, a total of five million hectares can be utilized.

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My e-mail: [email protected]