THE country’s first water bus system will start operating in Cebu next month. There had been much talk of a Pasig river ferry system for Metro Manila last April, scheduled to start by the middle of this year. Now Cebu, without much ado, has announced that its first waterbus will load passengers at the port on South Road Properties near Malacañang sa Sugbo. Mayor Tomas Osmeña allowed the Max Boat Marine Corp. to use an area at the dock as temporary terminal.
With the new water bus system, the trip from Cebu City to the southern town of Oslob will take about 90 minutes, instead of the five hours now needed to travel by road bus. The new twin-engine water buses are said to be twice as fast as the existing ferry boats.
In our land of rivers, lakes, and inland seas, water buses are truly the ideal solution to the worsening problem of road traffic congestion. Metro Manila has become known as one of the most congested cities in the world, but the problem has spread to other regional centers in the country, the result of booming populations and economic development.
At the very start of the new administration, President Duterte directed the new Department of Transportation (DoTr) to focus on Metro Manila’s problem, even asking Congress for emergency powers to enable it to quickly carry out solutions, such as the acquisition of right of way. Some improvement has been noted, as a result of more systematic enforcement by the Metro Manila Development Authority. Construction of more roads, overpasses, bridges, and a subway will take some time.
A major part of the solution is a plan drawn up by a Cabinet group led by the Department of Budget and Management.
This is a new system of 24 air-conditioned ferry boats to travel up and down the Pasig River from Laguna de Bay in the east to Manila Bay in the west, with 12 stations, to be increased to 29 in four years.
The plan was approved in a Cabinet meeting presided by President Duterte in April and an executive order to carry it out was drafted, with initial funds coming from the budgets of the DoTr, the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the National Economic and Development Authority, the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission, and the Laguna Lake Development Authority.
We await the start of this Pasig river system of air-conditioned ferries. DBM Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the plan is to bid out the operation of the ferry system to a private firm by the middle of the year. We will have reached that midyear point at the end of this month.
