26/08/2025
๐ฅ๐๐๐ ๐ฆ๐๐๐ง๐๐ฆ: ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ก๐๐ฆ ๐ข๐ ๐๐๐๐ข๐โ๐ฆ ๐ฅ๐๐๐๐ฅ๐ข๐๐ ๐ง๐ข๐ช๐ก๐ฆ
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In many of the railroad towns of Bikol, where the tracks cut through rice fields, mountains, and coconut groves, the train has been both a promise and a disappointment. A promise, because the Philippine National Railways (PNR) once connected these far-flung villages to cities and markets; a disappointment, because trains seldom stopped, and worse, because no long-distance trainsโpassenger or freightโcome at all today. The historic PNR, opened in 1892, fully connected Bikol to Manila and northern Luzon on 17 November 1937. But battered by war a few years later, train services gradually declined due to neglect and persistent problems.
Now, there are no more Mayon Limited, Peรฑafrancia Express, or Bicol Express, nor the long "merkansiya" (long-distance freight) trains that once ran from Manila to Bikol. What remains are only segmented services along the lineโNaga to Sipocot, Naga to Legazpi, and Calamba in Laguna to Lucena in Quezon.
Throughout this slow decline, people found their own way to move: the rail-skatesโknown simply as โskatesโ in Bikol.
A plank of wood, iron bars, and steel bearings, later fitted with a motor and mounted with a roof of trapal (polyvinyl chloride)โthis humble contraption became the most common ride in remote barangays. For decades, it carried farmers and their produce, children and their schoolbags, and families on urgent errands. Illegal though it may be, the skate became the true train of the villages.
Every invention begins with a need. For David A. Packay (1927โ2025), a lineman of the Manila Railroad Company (now PNR) in 1959, necessity meant walking dozens of kilometers daily along the tracks between Ragay, in Camarines Sur, and Legazpi City, inspecting telegraph lines under the sun. Sore feet gave birth to an idea: why not ride on the rails themselves?
With a loan from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), Packay bought a 2-horsepower Clinton engineโone usually used for a small coffee mill. He welded a steel platform, bolted on pulleys, bearings, and a fan belt, and let it roll down an incline. The machine worked. It rattled, it hummed, and it sped along the track, carrying him faster than any foot patrol. He christened it his โGo Kart.โ
What Packay built in his backyard would later become the backbone of mobility in Bikol and other railroad towns. Farmers adapted it. Neighbors improved it. Whole communities embraced it. The Go Kart became the skatesโa symbol of Filipino ingenuity and survival.
By the mid-1960s, authorities had already declared the skates โillegal.โ PNR General Manager Nicanor Jimenez banned their use after a series of accidents, including the tragic death of a young schoolteacher in Ragay when the Bicol Express plowed into the skate she was riding. Yet the ban did little to stop their use, for in the railroad towns, the skates were less a novelty than a necessity.
The towns along the railroadโTagkawayan in Quezon, Del Gallego, Ragay, Lupi, Sipocot in Camarines Sur, among othersโwere heavily dependent on them. These towns produced copra, palay, citrus, fish, livestock, and vegetables. But when PNR trips were delayed or suspendedโoften due to floods, derailments, or broken enginesโthe people were stranded. Crops rotted, the sick were left untreated, and trade came to a halt.
Concerns over the outlawed skates, related accidents, the prevailing social conditions, and the need for better roads were articulated in a front-page article of The Bicol Star on 30 December 1967. Written by Ramon H. Felipe Jr., former Naga City mayor and congressman of Camarines Surโs first district, the article emphasized the paramount importance of transportation in the development of this part of Luzon.
The persistence of skates underscored a deeper truth: the railroad towns of Bikol and Quezon were desperate for roads. They stood as living proof of the demand for what would later be called the Quirino Highway (now Andaya Highway)โa long-delayed project only completed in 1999, half a century after it was first conceived. Initiated in the 1950s, the highway was meant to link Camarines Sur directly to Quezon, sparing travelers the long detour through Camarines Norte. Until that road was finally built, skates remained the residentsโ only means of travel.
Skates are cheap and fast, but also dangerous. On 9 November 2011 in San Ramon, Pamplona, Camarines Sur, six-year-old Christian Aniceto was killed while crossing the tracks at a bend. In the same town, 64-year-old Bernardo Samar was thrown off a skate and died. These were not train accidents; they were skate accidents.
A typical skate is a 16-square-foot wooden platform on steel bearings, with two wooden benches that can seat up to 15 passengers. The motor, usually 7 to 10 horsepower, propels it along the tracks. Before motors, skates were pushed by hand, with drivers sprinting behind them. Today, most are motorized, but they remain unregulated.
Villagers are well aware of the dangers. At sharp bends, drivers often cut their engines, press an ear to the steel rails to catch the faint tremor of an oncoming train, or call out to nearby residents to ask if theyโve heard a whistle. Despite these precautions, accidents still occurโskates colliding with trains, crashing into each other, or flying off the tracks when a wheel or โside bearingโ gives way. Yet the rides continue, for the simple reason that the only alternative is no ride at all.
Why do skates thrive despite the risks? Because they answer a need no jeepney, bus, trimobile, or habal-habal has filled. They are cheap, accessible, and adaptable. Farmers use them to haul vegetables, rice, handicrafts, and coconuts to market. In emergencies, they become makeshift ambulances rushing the sick to town. They double as cargo trucks, delivery vans, even bridal cars for newlyweds.
A skate ride is more than transportโit is a community ritual. Neighbors pile in together, sharing benches and stories. Children laugh at the rattling ride, while parents balance baskets of produce at their feet. It is dangerous, yes, but it is also intimate and familiar.
In Bikol, the skates are not just vehicles; they are part of the regionโs identity. They symbolize resilience in places long neglected by modern infrastructure. They are the bridge between rice fields and markets, between isolated barrios and town centers.
Even as roads expand and buses inch closer, the villages born along the tracks still rely on skates. They survive because they are not just practical, but cultural. They embody the Filipino spirit of making do, of inventing solutions when official ones fail.
More than half a century after David Packayโs backyard experiment, the skates still rattle along the PNR lines. Outlawed yet tolerated, perilous yet indispensable, they endure. Above all, they are cherishedโfor in some corner of Bikol, where the train no longer stops or never comes at all, the skates keep moving.
And yet, this resilience should not mean abandonment. The very fact that skates thrive reveals a gap in public service and infrastructure. Leaders have the responsibility to recognize this ingenuity not as an excuse for neglect, but as a call to action. Policies must be crafted to ensure that transport in regions like Bikol is not only affordable and accessible, but also safe. To honor the spirit that built the skates is to provide the dignity of reliable mobilityโwhere no community is forced to choose between danger and isolation.
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The RURIP Series is a collection of essays or articles by Saysay Bikol that "submerge" into timely, seasonal, and historically significant themes of the Bikol region. Inspired by the word rurip, meaning to dive, each piece delves deeply into cultural, social, or historical topics vital to Bikolano identity and way of life.
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REFERENCES
Agbayani, Eufemio III. โSkating In Railway Heritage.โ Opinyon.net, February 2, 2023. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://opinyon.net/opinion/skating-in-railway-heritage
โโSonโ of the Bicol Express.โ Philippines Geographic Magazine 1, no. 2 (November 1995): 3โ6. From the Packay family collection.
Escandor, Juan Jr. โCheap โskatesโ ride takes a deadly turn.โ Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 23, 2011. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/99321/cheap-%E2%80%98skates%E2%80%99-ride-takes-a-deadly-turn
Fabila, Aaron. โCheap seats, danger meet on illegal Manila trolleys.โ Chron.com, December 21, 2008. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/cheap-seats-danger-meet-on-illegal-manila-1591094.php
Felipe, Ramon H., Jr. โRail-skates underline need Quirino highway.โ The Bicol Star, December 30, 1967. Through the UP Main Library Repository. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://repository.mainlib.upd.edu.ph/omekas/s/rare-periodicals/media/124131
Johnson, Howard, and Virma Simonette. โManila 'trolleys': Is this the world's most dangerous commute?โ Video. BBC World Service, May 9, 2010. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g1ar9GiBUA
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