MANILA, Philippines?President Macapagal-Arroyo on Tuesday rode a bus with the Malacañang press corps for a tour of a major road network that runs through the Urban Luzon Beltway (ULB).

In the one-and-a-half-hour bus ride from Calamba, Laguna through the Southern Luzon Expressway (SLEx) to Novaliches in Quezon City, Ms Arroyo fielded questions and marveled at the ?seamless traffic? and construction boom after a crisis.

?That?s the way to modernize the economy,? she said of the urban beltway, while the bus was traversing SLEx.

The ULB is one of five ?super regions? established by Ms Arroyo to turn the country into a major logistics and services hub in the Asia Pacific. It comprises Central Luzon, Metro Manila, the Calabarzon area (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) and half of Region IV-B.

After speaking at the Real Elementary School in Calamba at close to 10 a.m., Ms Arroyo boarded the press bus, said ?Hello? to reporters, and sat in Seat No. 15.

The bus made a brief stop at the construction site of a project in Calamba that would link SLEx with the Southern Tagalog Arterial Road (STAR) that leads to Sto. Tomas, Batangas.

From there, the bus took off for Manila.

After the Victory Liner bus exited SLEx via the C-5 exit, she said: ?SLEx to C-5 is seamless.?

She sounded displeased when the bus did not stop at the proposed construction site of a flyover across Commonwealth Ave., insisting that the briefing should have been held there.

The tour ended at a construction site of an underpass in Novaliches, with the bus getting stuck in a dirt road, and Ms Arroyo walking to the briefing area a few meters away.

The underpass is part of a large project to connect SLEx with the North Luzon Expressway through C-5 and provide motorists an alternate route to Edsa.