For those of you who aren’t in the know, the Philippines has three (3) railway systems running through Manila and its surrounding cities. We have the Light Rail Transit (LRTs 1 &2, which run from Baclaran to Roosevelt and Santolan to Recto respectively), the Metro Rail Transit (MRT, which runs from North Avenue to Taft Avenue) and the Philippine National Railways (PNR, which runs from Tutuban to Alabang, although the Wikipedia page says that it has trips to Sta. Rosa Laguna already).
The PNR receives a lot of flak for being the oldest but the most underdeveloped railway systems; it has the tag line of being “pang-masa” attached to its name, which could be quite offensive if you’re sensitive enough. It also probably doesn’t help that the rails, unlike the other lines, literally run through the back end of the cities; the tracks aren’t elevated like the other two. If you’re looking for a scenic tour of Manila, this isn’t where you’re going to get it. Unless of course if you want to give your out-of-towners an up close and personal look into the nitty-gritty of the “dirty” Manila, that is.
But it does what it’s supposed to do – it’ll get you to where you need to go with the least amount of transfers and at the cheapest rate available. Will you get squished against the glass and be acquainted with the bodily odors of your fellow passengers? Definitely. Will you be the victim of a pickpocket? Probably; that depends on your level of alertness during the ride.
With the price tag of 20PHP you can get from Alabang to Tutuban in roughly the same time it’ll take you to drive there, one can’t really complain.
Last week I found the need to get to my friend’s house in Dapitan from where I work in Taguig. I asked a lot of people for tips on how to get there and most of the answers I received involved me transferring three times at least to get to Dapitan. That wouldn’t work because I had two cumbersome bags with me. Then an office buddy of mine suggested that I take the bus from McKinley road to Magallanes and walk to the PNR where I can either walk or take a jeepney to my friend’s house. That is”if I didn’t mind talking the PNR”.
Now I’m not a total noob; I’ve ridden the PNR once last year but I do recognize that the circumstances were different because we rode from end-to-end, so the seats we scored in Alabang were already ours until Tutuban. But this time I had to catch a train in the middle of rush hour on a payday Friday. Yeah, I was sort of scared.
When I got there, the first thing I realized was that it’s not as pang-masa as it is famed to be; most of my fellow passengers all looked like they came from the office, just like me, and they all whipped out smart phones more expensive than my cruddy old Blackberry. The platform where the passengers waited for the train didn’t have a roof and the ruins (there’s no other word to describe it) looked like it survived a horrendous fire. It was pretty in that haunting way. I wanted to take a picture but I still feared for the safety of my camera.
The ticket they provided was a joke but at 10PHP, I’m not complaining. It was a harsh environment inside the carriages though – it was so jam packed full with people that I didn’t even have to hold onto any of the safety bars to keep myself upright. I was pressed among a throng of people and even though the carriage was an air conditioned one, the air never reached the sides and corners. So there’s the trade off: if you get to sit down, you’ll suffer the heat but if you’re unlucky enough to stand, at the very least you’ll experience cool air blown on your face.
Things settled down once we got past San Andres station, where most of the passengers got off. I even got to sit down for two stops and after wards I just walked the four or five blocks to my friend’s house. It’s probably more dangerous than I made it out to be, but it’s an experience that I’ll probably repeat.
