Metro Manila Subway drilling works start in 2020

MANILA, Philippines — Drilling works for the Metro Manila Subway project is set to start next year, Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Arthur Tugade said.

“The actual drilling will start next year,” Tugade told reporters on the sidelines of the start of construction ceremony of the Philippine National Railways (PNR) Phase 1 earlier this week.

Tugade said the project requires the excavation of about five million cubic meters of land, equivalent to about 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The transportation chief added that the delivery of the tunnel boring machines from Japan to be used for the Metro Manila Subway project has already began, with portions of the machine already at the DOTr office.

The 6.9-meter tunnel boring machine weighs over 600 tons and is manufactured by Japan’s Hitachi Zosen Sakai Works.

Tugade said delivery of the boring machine arrives by parts and will be assembled here.

He added the DOTr is targeting to complete the delivery of the machine in three months.

“But the cutterhead is already here,” he said.

Last February, the DOTr broke ground for the first three stations of the Metro Manila Subway project.

The design and build contract for the first three stations was awarded to the joint venture of Shimizu Corp., Fujita Corp., Takenaka Civil Engineering Co. Ltd. and EEI Corp.

The joint venture will be in charge of designing and constructing the subway’s partial operability section, which consists of its first three underground stations (Quirino Highway, Tandang Sora and North Avenue), tunnel structures, Valenzuela depot and the building and facilities for the Philippine Railway Institute.

Tugade said the first three stations of the project would be completed by 2022, with the entire project to last until 2025.

The 36- kilometer subway will have 15 stations, which will run from Quirino Highway to NAIA Terminal 3 in Pasay City and FTI in Taguig.

The subway is expected to cut travel time from Quezon City to NAIA-3 to 30 minutes.

In its first year of full operation, the P357-billion rail system is expected to serve up to 370,000 passengers per day, with a capacity of 1.5 million passengers daily.