“Historic” was the word thrown around for the Makati City Subway Project.
It was supposed to be the country’s first subway system, eyed to eventually be connected to the Metro Manila Subway.
Makati Mayor Abby Binay once said the infrastructure project would be her “crowning glory” once her third consecutive term ends in 2025, the same year the city subway was expected to be up and running.
“I believe the Makati Subway will be a very valuable legacy, and I am fully committed to its timely completion and operation,” said Binay in 2018.
Binay, who has reached her term limit as the mayor of Makati, is now gunning for a seat in the Senate.
The railway was designed to accommodate up to 27,000 commuters per hour going through different parts of the financial district of the metropolis.
But after years of preparations and billions spent by the local city government’s private partner — Philippine Infradev Holdings Incorporated — the subway project has since been shelved. Infradev on Friday, May 2, disclosed that it will be taking up the issue to an arbitration court in Singapore.
The $3.5-billion project
The Makati local government unit got the ball rolling on the project in December 2018 by signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a consortium led by Infradev.
Businessman Antonio Tiu, who led Infradev before resigning in 2023, spearheaded the subway project on the consortium’s end. Tiu previously faced accusations of being a front for the Binays, as his close business partners had ties with the political family.
The subway was originally supposed to have up to 10 underground stations, spanning 10 kilometers — around the Central Business District, around Little Tokyo, near Makati Medical Center, Circuit City, Makati City Hall (planned to be the railway’s main station), Rockwell, near a socialized housing project, University of Makati (UMak) area, and around Ospital ng Makati (OsMak).
The stations were planned to be accessible via 30 entrances located across the city, having links to ferry transport, the Metro Rail Transit 3 line, and the Metro Manila subway.
The city planned to deploy 18 trains with two- to four-minute intervals, accommodating as many as 700,000 commuters daily. It was also expected to generate 6,000 jobs through its construction phase and all the way up to its operations.
In July 2019, the company submitted a $350-million performance bond or a guarantee for the Makati LGU, signaling its commitment to the project development. Infradev and Makati City also signed the joint venture agreement in the same month.
Infradev received a notice to proceed in February 2020, with expectations that it would take at least five years or until this year to complete the $3.5-billion project.
Construction work, funding
Preliminary work on the project began immediately, with a six-month geo-test kicking off after the MOU was signed in December 2018.
In 2019, the project underwent an environmental impact assessment. Starting with Information Education Campaign (IEC) activities in the third week of May, up until a public consultation with stakeholders on the first week of September.
Makati Mayor Abby Binay said the local government would not shell out any funds for the project. Infradev would be in charge of financing and sourcing investors for the subway.
The company tapped China Construction Second Engineering Bureau Co. Ltd. and Shanghai Electric Group Automation Engineering Co. Ltd. in 2020 to handle the construction work. The $1.2-billion contract covers civil work or the planning and execution of the project estimated to cost $978.6 million, while $234.16 million was allocated for the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing work related to the project.
Infrdev also sought help from two Chinese firms to fund the project — raking in a $102-million equity investment and $200 million in credit facility from Hui Gao Investments Development and $30 million from Shanghai MinTu Investments.
Funds were used for land acquisition and to procure equipment.
It was the Makati LGU that led and granted right-of-way acquisitions for the subway project. Among those approved in October 2020 were the underground portions of:
- Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue
- South Avenue
- J.P. Rizal Avenue
- J.P. Rizal Extension
- Pablo Ocampo Sr. Extension (Vito Cruz Extension)
- Kalayaan Avenue
- Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA)
- C-5 Road (Carlos P. Garcia Avenue)
- San Guillermo Avenue
There were at least 55 lot owners in Makati who sold their property to the private consortium for the subway’s construction. Back then, agreeing to sell properties would have gotten owners P1 million as a signing bonus.
The consortium paid property owners P1.18 billion in total for 7,638.83 square meters.
Infradev got Richer Today Incorporated on the project in March 2021. Richer Today promised around P1.01 billion to help finance the acquisition of lots for the subway’s Station 5 — the city hall — which was identified as the main construction site. The first tunnel boring machine arrived months later in May.
Pandemic and a land dispute
Despite all the progress, however, construction work was affected by COVID-19.
“With this unexpected pandemic… delays [are] expected, but we’re very optimistic. We’re still catching up, trying to look for ways to speed up some of the processes so the vision of having the underground subway operating by 2025 is still intact,” Tiu said in a televised interview in 2021.
The company supposedly completed the excavation and shoring works of the first phase of the project — involving Station 3, along Sen. Gil J. Puyat Avenue, Dela Rosa Street, and Urban Avenue.
But in 2023, the publication of a Supreme Court ruling on the Taguig-Makati land dispute would suspend work on the subway project. The decision made it official that Fort Bonifacio and the Enlisted Men’s Barrios (EMBOs) are part of Taguig City.
This affected the last few stations of the Makati subway. UMak is located in West Rembo, while OsMak is in Barangay Pembo — these are among the 10 EMBO barangays now under Taguig’s jurisdiction.
Infradev, in a disclosure to the stock exchange on September 2023, noted that its depot was also among those affected by the decision.
“The alignment of the subway will no longer be feasible,” Infradev said. “The Company wrote the Makati City Government an Intent Notice to propose the commencement of discussions in light of the change in law the Supreme Court decision brings.”
Binay told reporters on January 2024 that the ruling effectively put the project to a halt. Limiting the subway line is also not an option for Binay, noting that it would no longer be “economically viable.”
She left it up to Infradev to submit a new project proposal, which means more money would be shelled out by the company on top of the billions it already spent on the abandoned subway project.
“Sila ‘yung nalugi kasi ang laki na ng nailabas nilang pera (They are the ones that lost money because they shelled out a lot),” said Binay. “They already started excavating and purchasing properties.”
The infrastructure project is just one of the many projects and services affected by the Taguig-Makati land dispute. Because of the High Court’s ruling, Taguig had also taken over EMBO barangays and its public schools, to the dismay of many residents.
Counting losses
In May 2025, it seems like the company and the Makati LGU have called it quits.
Infradev said that the subway project “was rendered no longer economically and operationally feasible due primarily to the Philippine Supreme Court’s decision declaring some subway stations and depot to be under the jurisdiction of Taguig City instead of the Makati City.”
“Arbitration proceedings have thus been commenced with the Singapore International Arbitration Centre to enable an impartial resolution of the [joint venture agreement] with the Makati City,” the company said in a disclosure on May 2.
Infradev’s consolidated financial statements covering 2024, however, states that it still wants to pursue the project and is studying other options.
It had already acquired a total of 8,413 hectares of land by end-2024.
Its auditor, PwC, has noted that Infradev lost P44 billion because of the project — P39 billion attributed to the cost of properties that were moved under the jurisdiction of Taguig City, while P5 billion was lost to development costs (including architectural designs and the master planning of the subway). – Rappler.com