Light Rail Manila Corp. names new head

MANILA, Philippines — The operator of Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1) has named Juan Alfonso as its new president and chief executive officer.

In a statement yesterday, Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC) said Alfonso’s appointment took effect on Dec.1.

Alfonso replaces Rogelio Singson, who takes a seat at LRMC’s board of directors. Alfonso has more than 25 years of work experience in different industries in the country and in the US. Prior to joining LRMC, he served as chief operating officer of Aseagas Corp., a subsidiary of  Aboitiz Power Corp.

He also held the position of senior vice president of the corporate services of AP Renewables Inc. of AboitizPower, responsible for accounting, finance, legal, human resources and strategy.   

Alfonso has a bachelor’s degree in management from the Ateneo de Manila University and a masters in business administration (cum laude) from F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. 

He also attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.

LRMC said it is grateful for the dedication and hard work of Singson as it was under his leadership when the consortium was certified compliant to international standards in Quality Management Systems (ISO 9001:2015) and Environmental Management Systems (ISO 14001:2015) following improvements in the train system.

It also said Singson represented the company effectively with the grantors, thereby facilitating the groundbreaking for preliminary works of the LRT-1 Cavite Extension held in May.

“His study and observations of the passenger traffic and behaviors at LRT-1 stations paved the way for the increased number of trips, reduced queueing time and improved passengers experience,” LRMC said.

LRMC, a joint venture of Metro Pacific Investments Corp.’s Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp., Ayala Corp.’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. and the Philippine Investment Alliance for Infrastructure’s Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) Pte Ltd., took over the operations of the LRT-1 in September 2015 after it bagged the LRT-1 Cavite extension, operation and maintenance contract.

The joint venture will be extending LRT-1 which currently covers Roosevelt station in Quezon City to Baclaran station in Parañaque, up to Bacoor in Cavite.

Earlier, LRMC said it expects to complete the extension of the train system by 2020 if the right of way is delivered on time.