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MEGALITH SM SHOEMART AND A DYING CORPORATE REGIME

Manila Philippines  --   A well known planner Jun Palafox said that there is a Metro Manila disease that he calls the state of being “over malled.”  Traffic in Metro Manila is affected by this malady.  The Honorable Francis Tolentino, Chairman, Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) agrees with the Palafox assessment.  More than twenty years ago, Thailand suffered the same disease and experienced the dire effect of the mall glut.  A large number of malls observers noted were “nilalangaw” (swarmed over by flies).  What do you think follows after a heap of mass that is attraction to throngs of flies?  You will find maggots breeding there.

A member of the SM Shoemart leadership refutes this, as Ms. Cynthia Patag shares the article of Philip Jr Lustre opinion writer of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and freelance pundit:

We had the opportunity to have some freewheeling discussions with Annie Garcia, president of SM Supermalls inc., and her business executives in the last fellowship meeting of the Thursday Club. So many issues had come out in our brief conversation. The following summarizes our discussions:

POINT ONE:  SM North City, the first to be built among the existing 50 local and 10 overseas malls, remains the biggest income earner for SM Supermalls, beating Megamall and Mall of Asia (MoA), the two largest SM mall complexes.  Mr. Bien Mateo, one of the vice presidents for operations, conceded that it could be surprising because Megamall and MoA are crowd drawers because of their gigantic sizes.

But since SM North is the original mall (it was built 30 years ago), it still draws big crowds.  In fact, the rent income (rent in SM North City is bigger than the other malls) has increased over the years unlike the two other malls.  The two other malls have the potentials to overtake SM North City, but that remains to be seen, Mr. Bien said.  Meanwhile, SM North City is slated to expand, as it plans to put a new structure over the space previously occupied by the Supermall building.  Also, SM plans to develop the adjacent two hectare land there. 

It was also astonishing, according to Mr. Bien, for SM North City to remain its top income earner despite the stiff competition of the Ayala-owned Trinoma mall situated just in front of SM North.  A factor could be the fact that the MRT-3 starts right on the SM North’s doorstep.  The question now is the move to transfer the MRT-3 North Avenue station in front of Trinoma.  But this is legal issue, which is already submitted to the court for litigation. 

POINT TWO: SM Supermalls Inc. president Annie Garcia does not believe that the Philippines is “overmalled,” or has an excess of malls.  On the contrary, the demand for more malls rises as the national economy improves.  A higher growth rate is translated into higher sales for the malls.  Hence, the demand exists and SM has to respond to the demand.

The SM Shoemart pride for SM City North Ave. is a bit ticklish tale - to say the least.  First, the mall was built on property that was not supposed to be acquired by private owners since it was government owned.  By the action of SM’s benefactor, the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos, SM won the battle to construct upon public domain measuring about 8 to 16 hectares – bigger than the 7-hectare Quezon City Memorial Circle (QCMC) or the 13-hectare core of the Makati Central Business District (CBD).

Second, it was allegedly the target of a people power uprising against the regime of Madam Corazon Aquino that will partly be led by a religious organization based in Quezon City.  The supposed plan was for the religious group to take over SM North and grab everything they can take in the mall as reward for their participation in the uprising.

The entire uprising plot fizzled away but surprisingly, SM Shoemart was in no forgiving mood:  It hired the members of the religious organization so that in the future, they would not be participating in any take-over attempts against any mall owned by SM Shoemart.

Furthermore, since the religious workers are under strict instructions never to engage in any form of unionism, SM Shoemart will be free from any conflicts and abrasive issues with its labor force.  The two moves of SM Shoemart can be considered real master strokes.

However, their decision to expand geometrically and even encroach into areas where the members of the community and small entrepreneurs vehemently resist the development of malls, will be the very downfall of the company.

Despite the decision of the SM conglomerate to expand into gambling, aggressive banking, maritime, port-marina development, condominium and housing development, among many other diverse businesses the company has nowhere to go but down.

By the mid 2000s, the SM Malls were posting deposits of more or less Two Billion Philippine Pesos (Php2,000,000,000.00) each and every month to Banco De Oro – a small bank purchased by the conglomerate at a meager price from its original owners, or around the total sum of Twenty Four Billion Philippine Pesos (Php24,000,000,000.00) a year.  That would be equivalent to One Half Billion United States Dollars (USD500,000,000) per year.

The company pays a horde of certified public accountants to certify its income is such and such and files the same with the Philippines’ Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) with a pittance sum as corresponding taxes.

One of the accountants of Mr. Sy grew old just adjusting his returns for the last twenty plus years, but the same accountant is now president of a few business organizations like a large apparel company and his accounting firm has acquired its own building along Aguirre St., BF Homes, Paranaque City, among many other properties in the Philippines and in the United States.

Aguirre Avenue in BF Homes is the scene of an untold number of illegal drug transactions, bukas kotse crimes, murders and many other heinous acts.  One wonders why a very wealthy accounting company would want to be in that neighborhood?

Aguirre Avenue. Photo from: www.bfhomes.net

The other accountants and loyal servants of Mr. Sy cannot be laughed at for doing the dirty work for their employer.  They have bigger and better buildings as well as residential palaces, various units in condominium towers, employ more or less twenty helpers and no less than five to six chauffeurs each and have trust funds for their children and grandchildren nesting safely in banks – one of which is of course BDO.

Since its more profitable years up to this time, notwithstanding that SM Shoemart is also publicly listed and is earning from the Philippine Stock Exchange as well as in other trading centers where it is also listed, the accumulated SM Shoemart income will amount to slightly over Seven Billion United States Dollars (USD7,000,000,000.00).  However, Forbes List describes the patriarch of SM Shoemart to be worth Twelve Billion and Seven Hundred Million United States Dollars (USD12,700,000.00).  That gives a difference of nearly Five Billion United States Dollars (USD5,000,000,000.00).

Whatever accounting the SM Shoemart and its financial backers make, to include the merging of locally and externally sourced income for the conglomerate – including the huge pay-outs for entering into big ticket corporate mergers and ventures such as the one with other Macau casino organizations in the Belle Grande Manila Bay gambling-entertainment complex (USD550,000,000), the Nasugbu Port project, there is a very big gap to fill up the claim of USD12.7 Billion net worth.

According to Malaysian sources, SM Shoemart’s Sy group is linked to another chinese Mr. Willy “Ocier” who together with allies in the most powerful bloc inside the Aquino regime – the (Presidential) First Family – took away the business of Malaysia’s Berjaya Group from under the very nose of Berjaya’s Malay-Chinese owners.

Among many others, the scandal brought about by the allegedly illegal bumping off of Berjaya Group from the Philippine Lotto system, is one of the suspect reasons why the Aquino family-supported erstwhile lady Chair of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) was kicked out of the agency.  Mr. Aquino, after all, is personally very close with the Prime Minister Datuk Najib Razak of Malaysia as Datuk Tungku Razak the elder Malaysian statesman father of PM Najib, was close to Mr. Aquino’s father, the late Senator Benigno S. Aquino, Jr.

The Malaysians disclosed that SM Shoemart’s Sy Group and the “Ocier” business organization are linked together in many respects.  Among those enterprises that are only known publicly are the elite, luxury housing projects in Tagaytay City and several other businesses including gold or mineral extraction (mining) ventures.

Local quarters say that Willy “Ocier” was a fixture under the regime of former President Joseph Estrada.  His group operated the online Bingo that was granted a franchise by the Estrada regime.

Whatever the source of Sy’s wealth aside from the vaunted “rags to riches” and “hard work and industry” claim of the SM Shoemart empire and what could the group be thinking of by kicking out the Malaysians from Philippine Lotto as well as getting in the same bed with sleek operators that worked the gambling scene and the underworld realm of shady activities and insider stock trading (Belle Grande’s stock is now one of the fastest rising in the Philippine Stock Exchange), is for nosy quarters to find out.

The crux of the matter is that SM Shoemart, that claims it is stable and has not “over malled” the Philippines, is simply doing just that – building and building up to a mall glut from where Thai mall developers drowned and could not get up from.

One of Henry Sy, Sr.'s fellow sly operator, another Willy, builds malls just to engage in highly illegal human trafficking.  This man might not be far from the recent sky high malls in Divisoria-Binondo area.  For sure, you will find too many foreign faces manning stores in those malls like in the past.  Those foreigners sell everything imported and do not know a single word of English or Filipino.  How do they manage to get permits to own stores?  That's part of the trillion dollar question.

SM Shoemart now has more than one kind of mall store:  Save More Supermarket, SM HyperMarket and the SM Shoemart Mall, SM Super Mall (Mega Mall) and SM Regional Mall (Mall of Asia), SM The Podium.

In Cavite alone, there are a string of SM Malls and with Ms. Vilma Santos at the helm in Batangas Province, the SM Shoemart has finally gotten the nod to invade “no mall build zone” Batangas that somewhat irrationally and whimsically just traditionally hates chinese businessmen encroaching into their turf.

The Ayalas are still hurting over the coup d’etat of SM Shoemart when their chinese rivals “bought” from Taguig City the real estate Ayala group donated to the local government for the purpose of building a park for the people of Taguig.  SM Shoemart built a park indeed but over and above a large mall that they designed for high class shoppers called SM Aura.  Anyone who looks poor enough to be categorized a domestic help, certainly does not deserve to enjoy the perks of a park at that part of Taguig City.

SM Shoemart, like its foreign mall owner counterparts, keep buying off the small competition.  It acquired the Save More and MACRO stores and is slated to buy off others.

One of the biggest issues that will trouble SM Shoemart in the future is theft.  In many provincial areas, a lot of property owners are crying “land grabbers” against SM Shoemart.  A very insignificant business group in the unknown and obscure minority, are shouting theft of their intellectual property rights at SM Shoemart for the illegal, unauthorized continued use of the name BONUS for decades without any compensation.  SM Shoemart is probably just feeling smug at people like these that it feels it can always afford to rob. After all, they're small fry and shit compared to the Henry Sy, Sr. of Forbes List fame.

With all the pride of SM Shoemart for its achievements, it certainly does not look like it will rest on its laurels.  The company doggedly goes on to build and build, from houses to condos, malls to giant pantheons of their super light industry mentality of buy and sell, buy and sell – without contributing significantly through heavy industries to the development of their host country they chose to settle in after setting themselves loose from their homeland.

On its path to greatness, the SM Shoemart giant company killed hundreds of people it trapped inside SM Riverbanks complex at Marikina City when it closed the mall down when tropical storm Ondoy floods started seeping inside the structure.  The reason for the complete lockdown was to prevent looters from being able to steal any of the mall’s goods as if everything within reach was as expensive or pricier than gold.  As a result of this i-a-thief-suspect-others-as-thief mindset, many had died on that day alone.  En route to hospitals or back at home, some of the other victims also never survived.  That's SM Shoemart tender loving care for you.

SM has had to close many other malls such as the SM Rosario, Pangasinan for fear of the repetition of the SM Riverbanks Marikina tragedy.  This was possibly the same story for closing down another overcrowding mall unit anyhow in the Daang Hari area, in Cavite.

The SM Shoemart patriarch is now dying.  Inside sources said that when the old man set aside a large sum of money for trust in a non-profit company, the eldest daughter violently raged against father and threw all caution and manners aside to stake a claim to the SM conglomerate’s treasury of her part in the money her father and she and siblings supposedly earned over time.

Elder sister’s siblings went on to stake their claims on the rest of the empire.

Why in a non-profit slush fund?  Why not in enterprise?  Or in banking?  High stakes investments?  That is undoubtedly a trillion dollar question.

Eventually, instead of allowing the company to shatter into pieces, the patriarch and the other elders prevailed and set their foot down thereby making the decision to halve the monstrous SM organization into several companies.  Thus was the eldest made to sit as head of SM Investments, one of the heirs given the CEO post of SM malls, the other of SM housing.

Around this time started the string of MARTILYO GANG and similar smash and grab robberies-in-band inside the SM Shoemart Malls.  No particular major arrests have been made to this date.  No heavy recovery of loots stolen - what happened to SM Shoemart security?

The Mall group drums up its very fierce and tender loving advocacy for what they call PWDs or persons with disability.  If they cannot protect the publics and their store owners that are not with any handicap, how can they even more so protect the disabled, the elders, the women and children who may be weaker?

SM Mega Mall Robbery - Unsolved

Unsolved SM MOA Robbery

SM MOA Robbery Suspect Mark Kalama is a security guard! He is a selfie regular in SM MOA posing with criminal type companions

 

 

Still and all, there is only one Henry Sy, Sr.  There is only one company and that company bears the culture and the spirit of the old man and him alone, not the new breed.  The secrets of the money tree that Henry Sy, Sr. and his father found may be known to the children but can they manage those secrets successfully like their elders?

Lucio Tan, who held on to Marcos’ wealth for a long time, eventually had to give up most of the holdings over to a group that only very keen observers can accurately identify.  Surely, they cannot simply be “Philip Morris and Co.”  The also dying Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. refuses to give up Marcos’ share in his stable.

Dying and no longer very able, when Henry Sy, Sr. divests, or is divested (is this the reason for the billion dollar slush fund), how will the SM Shoemart mall chain survive?  Perhaps it will, it will among the flies surrounding it and maggots inside it.

Does it really take too much shrewdness, cleverness and very ruthless policies to keep the stall owners, suppliers, sourcing entities, service providers toeing the line even if they are always at the losing end?   Will the new care takers be able to do what Henry Sy, Sr. and his son(s) and daughter were able to do and keep everything together?

Won’t the mall glut overtake the divesters and just make the Sy family fall altogether even with a brand new gambling empire, Banco De Oro, China Bank (originally the heirloom bank of Chiang Kai Shek the Founding Father of Taiwan and man Friday Dee) and housing business to boot?

In the beginning, the SM Shoemart patriarch, his lieutenants and children, should have made the right investments, made the right and not the stupidest decisions, avoided delayed payment of suppliers, shied away from pompous and unprofitable useless over malling, took very good care never to kill hundreds of people just to stop looters, engaged in more development-oriented heavy industries, refrained from intellectual property theft, shunned illegal connections, stop bragging about their so so humanitarianism and charity when they cannot even pay off their debts to society and be really good citizen-entrepreneurs.  In short, as the adage says, brother Chinese in the Philippines, don't just drown in material ambition or greed, get a life!

All in all, the SM Shoemart is a giant corporate regime that is in the throes of death.  And sadly, dying will not be painless.

Header photo : from Forbes.com

In the photo, Mr. Henry Sy, Sr. attending religious ceremony (Catholic Mass) after completing the much disputed supposedly illegitimate SM Aura construction. In celebratione uilissima peccata mea.

Originally posted in:  Rebus21 @ WP

Metro Rail Accidents and Future Mishaps

The solution to the metro rail accidents and the gigantic traffic jam affecting Manila and nearby locales is a pipe dream. The decrepit mass transit system will stay the way it is, despite the fact that the Philippine public sector brags about purchasing the MRT transport utility for more than One Billion Two Hundred Million United States Dollars (US$1.2 B) using taxpayers’ money.

On the other hand, the media hype and the traffic drama arising from the so-called overstocking of container vans in Manila is just that: part of a telenovela.

The elite and finest Manila Police District alone, all on its very own, can solve the problem about the so-called crisis that took the entire government months and weeks and too many conferences, overt and cloaked, to solve.

It is a simple problem, ask the Manila Police that holds the time-honored distinction of being almost all of Asia’s silent university for solving traffic management problems or any other traffic-related concerns – were it not for the hidden intentions to prolong the bull shit about over stocking and causing single vehicle stalls that create 5-hour or more traffic jams unheard of in the history of this country. Just because of a simple 1-truck stalling incident. Not particularly defensible nor justifiable at all, Your Honors.

Supposedly a gargantuan problem besets the Philippine Mass Rail Transit system that is one of the sectors dominantly held and controlled by foreign interests.

What does Anglo-Philippine Holdings mean to you? To the average rail commuter? What does MRTHI mean to any of us? Or the banks LBP? DBP? Nothing, obviously, except that they own 100 percent of the Metro Rail. On the other hand, the government now completely owns and runs the Light Rail Transit – that is no longer in private hands.

These entities Anglo-Philippine Holdings, Metro Rail Transit Holdings, Land Bank of the Philippines, Development Bank of the Philippines and other closely linked institutions determine the life of every commuter that steps on board an MRT coach.

For those injured in the recent MRT mishap at the Pasay Terminal, look for the people behind Anglo-Philippine Holdings, Metro Rail Transit Holdings, Land Bank of the Philippines, Development Bank of the Philippines, et al to sue. With the incumbent regime officials on their side, taking their defense while at the same time stabbing their backs.

So now the government is ending the back-stabbing and the enormous shame that goes with it and claim the MRT as a public sector asset. Remember what they say when a utility is in public sector hands? Its transactions will reek of corruption so the government determines to unfollow and unfriend the model of U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Europe and others in privatizing government assets.

The regime of the late Madam Corazon Aquino started the privatization frenzy in the Philippines. This was followed by the succeeding Philippine presidents since and now Mr. Aquino wants to buy back the debt to Metro Rail Transit Corporation (MRTC), a subsidiary of Metro Rail Transit Holdings (MRTH) which in turn is co-owned by Anglo-Philippine Holdings also peculiarly known as the APO.

What is in store for the MRT riding commuter? More accidents? Real to goodness mass casualty incident where a train smashes through a throng of vehicles and people involving no less than fifty to a hundred dead and two, three hundred injured?

And all because you can’t buy newer more functional coaches, ride more people, allow unsafe buses, jeepneys and shuttle vans to dominate the transport system.

Buses are no longer allowed in city streets in Metro Manila.
But lobby money keeps flowing and they continue to terrorize
the streets of Metro Manila with abandon threatening to kill
at any time with the government always looking the other way.

For the favored few under this regime, quislings or significant others, their fortunes will balloon, as in the time of the late Madam Aquino when all of a real sudden too many shining, brand new abodes kept springing up in large numbers in exclusive enclaves of the rich and announced as the trophies of the late Madam’s sycophants, lickspittles and doormats. Good for them, meanwhile the troubles that await the poor riding public are one too many.

Railways Incidents

Fourteen years ago, during the presidency of now Mayor of Manila, Joseph Estrada the Light Rail Transit (LRT) was subjected to serious and deadly assault from supposed terrorists. In a series of fatal bombings coinciding with the commemoration of the martyrdom of Dr. Jose Rizal on December 30, 2000, the most critical being on an LRT coach, twenty two people were killed and more than one hundred were seriously injured.

While there were purported arrests made of the perpetrators, up to this day, the real culprit has not yet been identified and placed behind bars. Some culprits may even be very successful and honorable today and no longer qualify as persons of interest.

For now, the incident may have maimed, wounded, injured only a few recently. Will this change? Will there be more in the future? Will there also be some foreigners thrown into the fire so the accidents will become international incidents? No one know as of now, but it will be a little more clear in the near future.

It is not difficult to surmise that if the gods get crazy they might just plant bombs in the trains like in the December 30 affair.

Yet this is not the worst part of the story.

Lobby money

There is big money in keeping the mass railway transit in its fledgling, skinny, malnourished state. The same regime generating pecuniary assistance and other gains from visibly cooperating generously and extremely cordially with the private owners of the MRT on the surface instead of keeping it in line (note the severely deficient performance of the maintenance contractor hired under this regime among the other defects in management) is also the very regime that gets friends-with-benefits from the lobby of the bus and other public transport utility companies servicing the same routes as the very aged, old and feeble Metro Rail – or as it were even the LRT and in some sense, also the PNR.

The security system of MRT and so with the other rail operations (LRT, PNR) sucks. Much money goes into skim and all the add-ons on the third party private security provider contract are never declared as the very freebies that the contractors brag about in their technical bid documents.

For the average riding public, they are not aware that the compulsory restricting ersatz at the terminals by security personnel are merely going through the motions of providing security. While useless items are banned from being brought into the riding platforms, no one is ever certain that the real bootie of terrorists will be detected and the suspects will be identified.

Can the security CCTV actually capture distinct images? Or are the freebie CCTV cameras simply analog pieces that won’t even measure up to cheap built-in cameras in pirate china phones? Was the MRT recent accident viewable in the MRT security CCTV video databank or no?

The riding public is in a lot of trouble riding those death machines. But the masses are helpless, so they will ride and ride and ride to their end up to kingdom come.

Tightened knot

Public Transport Utility companies have been given the marching orders to stay out of Metro Manila under the Philippine law but this is not happening.

The lobby by bus and jeepney operators is so palatable such that damned the riding public, if the mass railway transit system will die, to hell with the consumers, to hell with the public sector, Buses and Jeepneys will ride their merry way through all over Metro Manila railway routes and kill the mass railway transit system.

Jeepney accident in Makati City ABC Commercial complex.

In Marikina City nearly on the same period, 11 people were killed

in a similar jeepney accident. Nowhere are commuters safe from

these coughing, deadly machines equipped with truck engines.

So if government itself and its partners in the public utility transport companies are killing the mass rail transit, we ask again, why will government purchase the MRT? That’s the Billion Dollar question.

And its sicker than bombing 22 people to death and maiming, wounding more than one hundred others.

More than Fifty up to nearly Seventy Billion Philippine Pesos will be used to buy only the MRT, and as a result, the Philippine Government and the public that owns and finances its humongous expenditures (including DAP, family full twenty reasons for appointments and regular skim, Cabinet’s own safe keeping activities, Drilon’s multi million fancy houses, Congress’ diligent profitable Housekeeping and other shenanigans) will not even own a single dream railway coach.

With more than Fifty up to nearly Seventy Billion Pesos, it would be nice to have at least one coach similar to the bullet train for the public to enjoy riding in – instead of suffering in those running coffins that have open-close-open-close viewing windows for the bereaved to see their dead relatives.

No less than half of the Philippines populations’ one hundred million people will be elbowing each other just to ride that one bullet train coach. Imagine the staggering revenue of servicing fifty million souls at fifty pesos per ride. (Bullet train ride will not come cheap, so fifty Philippine Pesos may be charged instead of just more than ten Philippine Pesos.)

But the bullet train, better be safer than riding in the MRT veritable death traps.

If you are an MRT riding commuter, in the space of months to more than a year under this regime you could possibly end up in a real coffin if the public sector does not get their act together and be more transparent.

Losing for gains

It is not the lack of political will that the railway system is not being allowed to grow and therefore with better revenue, to improve its services dramatically over time.

Despite the fact that the railway transit coaches are always loaded to the rafters, this is the not the actual expected captive market for the system. Much of the commuter market is siphoned off by the secondary public transport utility services made up of buses, jeepneys, contract point-to-point minivan shuttle taxis, contract big van shuttles. Many contract point-to-point shuttle vans are even prowling the streets without licenses to operate issued to them from the government.

Contract fare Mini Van Shuttle figures in accident.

Too many of these utility vehicles are not even licensed

to navigate the streets of Metro Manila or the suburbs.

Thus, the greatest weaknesses of the Mass Rail Transit is that there are fewer than the desired passengers it can service, and therefore little justification for acquiring new coaches.

Ergo, without new coaches, no definitive growth for the railway service provider, except that the corporation that owns it, is already assured of money back guarantee by the government with fifteen percent profit once these owners appear to lose heart and place their money elsewhere.

For this reason, there is overload in nearly all coaches during rush hour and this might give a semblance that it is the real one and only mass transport choice of the people. It is definitely not.

Clearly the urban rail transport under both the Phillippine National Railways (PNR) and Light Rail Transit (LRT) I and II, started projecting sales that in terms of predicted income appear to be palatable to investors, there has been no realization of the plan to restrict buses outside the busy streets of Metro Manila.

When the project Metro Rail Transit (MRT) came off the drawing board it was launched at a time when there was anticipated greater losses than its pioneering counterparts. Just because there was absolutely no niche for the railways commuter services system in the Philippine transport market, as there is no room for railways cargo transport in the country.

What was supposed to be the Master Plan, along with the construction and installation of more railroad lines beyond the current 3 lines of PNR, LRT I and II and MRT. The original intention for the Philippine Rail sector was to build a network of more or less eight (8) rail lines (Lines A - H). Up to this time, only the three are in functional existence despite too many offers to build the same -- including building subway lines.

But there is the skim and the lobby funds to seriously think about before allowing the railways transit system to go forward.

Meanwhile, the regular dude and chick that goes to the train terminal each day and at limited hours at night and in the early hours of morning, have no inkling that a few unregular, scheming business people and managers of the regime are playing gambles and cashing in chips by the billion dollars simply because the foolish public keeps riding and riding the train to their possible final journey. They are so clueless they can’t even think about the best wording for their last will or for a quaint epitaph should they figure in a sham accident.

Train rams jeepney. This should not happen if jeepneys are plying routes

outside of Metro Manila busy thoroughfares and railway routes.