MANILA and Japan agreed on Tuesday to jointly develop a so-called Philippines Railway Institute envisioned to be a premier training institution that will ensure that the local railway manpower is on a par with international standards and best practices.
Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade and Japan International Cooperation Agency Senior Rep. Tetsuya Yamada signed during a transportation summit in Manila the “records of discussion” for the establishment of the said training and regulatory body.
According to Tugade, the institution is a reflection of the government’s acknowledgement that construction of new train facilities is not merely enough to sustain a healthy local railway sector, as it is “equally important” to ensure that the people manning rail infrastructure are also competitive in terms of skill and talent.
“We will establish the railway institute, as we have seen a death in training in our existing rail workers. Our partner for this is the Japanese group Metro Tokyo,” he said on Thursday. “This will ensure that we can change the way we maintain the equipment, the operations and even customer service in our train systems.”
Tugade added the institute is seen to become a licensing and certification body that will ensure that the quality of manpower to be deployed in the Philippines’s train systems both existing and planned. Transportation Undersecretary Timothy John M. Batan explained that the establishment of the institute is divided into phases.
“For phase one, the institute will provide trainings to people — meaning people will enroll to gain knowledge about rails,” he said. “But, eventually, it will be a certification body for other institutions.”
For instance, he added, a university would like to come up with a railway program, the institute may grant a certification for it to offer the program to the public. Tugade noted the said institute is an offspring of the government’s infrastructure thrust, called the “Build Build Build” program, which is seen to usher the country into the Golden Age of Philippine Infrastructure.
“This is a result of our initiative to build several railway systems, such as the Subway, the Tutuban-Malolos line and the Malolos-Clark line,” the Cabinet official said. There will be a physical campus to be located in Valenzuela City. It will be opened this year.
Aside from these, Tugade also signed agreements with academic institutions such as Mapua University, National University, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Technological Institute of the Philippines and University of Santo Tomas that will help the government gain more knowledge in the railways sector.