Marcos abolishes Northrail 4 years after deactivation
President Marcos has ordered the abolition of the state-run North Luzon Railways Corp. (Northrail) which was tasked with overseeing one of the Duterte administration’s “Build, Build, Build” transport projects that was supposed to be funded by China, Malacañang said on Saturday. The abolition order came four years after the Governance Commission for Government-Owned or -Controlled Corporations (GCG) ordered the deactivation of Northrail. Memorandum Order No. 17 (Memo 17) signed by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin on Oct. 19, said Northrail was no longer “cost efficient, and does not generate the level of social, physical and economic return vis-a-vis the resource inputs.” The order stated that Northrail was “not producing the desired outcomes” and was “no longer achieving the objectives and purposes for which it was designed and created.” BCDA subsidiary There was no immediate explanation from Malacañang on why the abolition order was issued four years after the company was deactivated in May 2019. Northrail was established in July 1995 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) to develop, construct, operate and manage a railroad system to serve Metro Manila, Central and Northern Luzon. The state-owned company was created to implement the Northrail project to link the northern flank of Metro Manila with Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Clark, Pampanga. The first phase of the 80-kilometer rail line was to connect Caloocan City to Malolos City in Bulacan province. The Department of Transportation (DOTr) said the railway project had been delayed and subjected to many controversies since Northrail was established. “However, the Duterte administration, through the DOTr, has expressed its full commitment to finally deliver this project before the end of the President’s term,” the BCDA said in a statement in November 2017. According to a 2022 report by the Commission on Audit (COA), Northrail entered into an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Spanish Railways Group (SRG) in 1996 under the Ramos administration for the construction of the railway system between Caloocan and Malolos. Estrada years But the project did not push through because it could not raise the necessary funds. During the short-lived Estrada presidency from 1998 to 2001, Northrail and the BCDA tried getting funding for the Northrail project from Japan but the Japan Bank for International Cooperation financed the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway instead. The rail line became a flagship project of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2003. Memo 17 designated the BCDA
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