Manila, Philippines – The proposed multi-billion-peso Manila-Clark Northrail project will be finished in 60 months or five years, well past the current six-year tenure of President Benigno S. Aquino III which began in mid-2010 and ends in June 2016.
Leonardo Tolentino, head of the Manila Northrail project, has told senators that the project, now revised by the Aquino administration, requires 27 months of planning and another 33 months for construction or a total of 60 months or five years.
Resumption of the suspended rail project would lead to the transfer of the Manila International airport complex to the Clark economic zone in northern Pampanga.
“The key to that transfer is high-speed train,’’ Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Secretary Manuel A. Roxas II said.
“It will be a fast train between Clark and Caloocan city. It will be electrified. Before (the entry of the Aquino administration replacing the nine-year Arroyo administration), we were doing the commuter train. Now, it will be a fast direct connection between Metro Manila and Clark,’’ Roxas said. (Mario B Casayuran)