Interdisciplinary Team Starts Work on the Planning History of the Metro Manila Mass Transit

L-R: Elinor May Cruz; Miguel Paolo Reyes, Daniel Mabazza, Jonathan Villasper, Jose Regin Regidor, Joel Ariate Jr., Ricardo Jose; Marco Lagman, Gerard Daguio, Johnson Damian, Dominic Aloc, Geia de la Peña, Emerald Flaviano.

The Mass Transit System in Metro Manila: 
From Tranvia to MRT, 1879-2014

Program leader: Dr. Ricardo T. Jose

The Third World Studies Center, in collaboration with the National Center for Transportation Studies and the Geography Department of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy of the University of the Philippines, has been awarded by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs an Emerging Interdisciplinary Research Grant (2015-2017).


Four core projects and their proponents:

Project 1. A history (both text and audiovisual documentary) of the railway systems from the colonial Manila (1879) up to the present Metropolitan Manila (2014) as gleaned from plans and the built infrastructures

Co-project leader: Prof. Marco Lagman, Department of Geography, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, UP Diliman

Project 2: A GIS rendering of the evolution of the railway system in Metro Manila as well as those which were put into plan but remains unexecuted

Co-project leader: Dr. Daniel Mabazza, Department of Geography,  College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, UP Diliman

Project 3: A critical transportation engineering review of the of the mass transit system in Metro Manila, focusing on railways

Co-project leader: Dr. Jose Regin Regidor, National Center for Transportation Studies, UP Diliman

Project 4: An oral history on the politicians, bureaucrats, technocrats, and academics who were involved in planning, designing, funding, and building the Metropolitan Manila mass transit system

Co-project leader: Dr. Ricardo T. Jose, Third World Studies Center, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, UP Diliman

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