RSA’s game-changing projects

Metro Manila is excited about businessman Ramon S. Ang, or RSA’s unsolicited proposal to solve Edsa’s traffic mess.

He wants to construct a 10-lane elevated tollway on the 23-kilometer-long thoroughfare from Samson Road in Caloocan City to Macapagal Avenue in Pasay City. The proposed steel road, which will have five lanes in each direction, will also host a bus rapid transit system that can ferry 1.5 million passengers daily. This project will cost P23 billion and in a show of sincerity, Ang says the government can buy it at cost at any time if it wants to operate it.

Another San Miguel Corp. (SMC) project that will decongest Edsa in the first quarter of 2020 is the P37-billion Skyway 3 project that stretches 18.68 km, cutting travel time from Gil Puyat in Makati City, to Balintawak, Quezon City, to 20 minutes. Included is a P10-billion bus and food terminal for 1,000 provincial buses and UV Express vans at the old Pandacan oil depot in Manila.

But the biggest game changer is SMC’s recently approved P745-billion New Manila International Airport in Bulakan, Bulacan, that will begin construction this December.

Included here is the building of an airport express train system, about 20 km long, all the way to Edsa. Expressways will be built from the airport to North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) in Marilao, Bulacan, and a “coastal expressway” to Navotas and Manila. (Navotas is just 4 km away from the new airport via Manila Bay).

SMC’s MRT 7 project is almost halfway done and on target to operate in 2021. This 22-km rail line will have 14 stations from San Jose del Monte City in Bulacan province, to North Avenue in Quezon City.

It will serve 420,000 passengers daily and share a common station with MRT 3 on Edsa. Included in the project is a six-lane highway to NLEx and an intermodal terminal for 200 buses.

SMC’s other project, the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway, will reach Rosario, La Union, this month. It will be extended later to Laoag City, Ilocos Norte.

The South Luzon Expressway-Toll Road 4 extension project (bypass Daang Maharlika) connecting Sto. Tomas in Batangas province, to Lucena City, Quezon province, will reduce travel time from four hours to an hour. In 36 months, it will benefit motorists from both provinces and the Bicol region.

Up close, RSA is seriously propeople and procountry. He has opened a feeding and education center in Tondo, Manila, that will feed a million kids in the next 10 years. His company is charging the cheapest rates for electricity and water in the country. He is obsessed with making a better world for Filipinos by offering “private sector solutions” to the government.

Not only does he work harder than anybody else, Ang is very decisive, a risk taker and a man of his word. He believes in a bigger purpose in which nothing is impossible. To many, RSA has the qualities to lead the country in 2022.

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Who is this local government executive in Luzon who flatly refused a P10-million monthly offer from a gambling company in exchange for allowing it to operate on his turf? This daring local official has ordered the immediate cancellation of business permits issued by his predecessor and is keeping a tight watch on the operations of establishments.

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