Infrastructure Improves

<FONT SIZE="+3"><B>Infrastructure Improves</B>

By Robert Selwitz

Travelers to the Philippines now are enjoying a host of direct and indirect benefits spurred partly by greater political stability here.

For example, plans call for new roadways connecting Manila with Subic Bay and Clark Air base, both of which will serve international flights (see main story). In car-clogged Manila, work is under way on a new surface light-rail system, which will run along major highway dividers.

The LRS will connect the heart of Manila with vital districts such as Makati, the city's financial district. Completion is scheduled for 1998. The rail system will join an air-conditioned elevated Light Rail Transit (LRT) that now operates a 15-kilometer line from Baclaran in the south to Monumento in the north. Fifteen stations are located at major intersections.

In addition, the Metro Tren rail route links Tutaban in Manila to Cavite Province in the south, and the Metro Ferry crosses the Pasig River from Escolta Manila to Guadalupe, Makati.

Tourist authorities also report that the nation's power supply has been seriously improved, and the chances for brownouts or blackouts are now minimal to none. For those who haven't visited recently, and remember conditions during the Marcos and Aquino regimes, this may be the best infrastructure news of all.