November 12, 2025 | 12:00am
As railway remains unprofitable
MANILA, Philippines — Tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific Group is eyeing to sell its 35.8-percent stake in the operator of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1) due to mounting losses arising primarily from fare deficit.
Pangilinan yesterday said the Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) has started evaluating the possibility of divesting in the LRT-1’s operator Light Rail Manila Corp.
LRMC is losing hundreds of millions of pesos annually from operating and maintaining the railway, caused by the slow recovery from pre-pandemic ridership and the government’s denial of fare hikes.
“We are still losing money on LRT-1 because of COVID. Ridership went down obviously and it has not fully recovered from COVID. We continue to lose money from LRT-1. We are considering selling it. We are considering getting out of light rail,” Pangilinan said.
Based on MPIC data, LRMC grew its revenue by 14 percent to P2.88 billion in 2024 from P2.52 billion in 2023. However, the operator sustained P828 million in losses, as it had to spend for its commitments to upgrade the original alignment and build a new line.
LRMC is also responsible for assuming P20 billion of the P64.9-billion LRT-1 Cavite Extension Project, which, in its entirety, would extend the line to Bacoor, Cavite.
Despite the capital-intensive projects, the LRT-1 has yet to recover its pre-pandemic level of passenger traffic of as high as 450,000 daily.
In 2024, the LRT-1 facilitated the trips of more than 115 million passengers, translating to a daily ridership of 323,987, still far from the pre-pandemic peak.
It is also no secret that LRMC has sought fare hikes every two years since 2016, but the Department of Transportation denied it multiple times. Under the concession with the DOTr, LRMC is allowed to ask for a fare increase once every two years to recoup investments.
Prior to the recent fare adjustment in April, LRMC had piled up a deficit of P2.17 billion dating back to its first petition in 2016. Despite this, the operator has gone on to complete its projects, including the extension works to Cavite.
With this, Pangilinan said investors in MPIC have asked him to consider exiting the business, but clarified that the company has yet to talk to anyone about selling its stake in LRMC.
“We were just talking about it yesterday, and people are complaining that we are losing money in it, so (they ask me), why do we need this?” Pangilinan said.