Ingenuity on Rails: Uncovering the Craft and "Skates" of Lopez, Quezon
For much of us, we were made to believe that the communities that lined the aging Philippine National Railways tracks were nothing more than squatter settlements; clusters of improvised homes said to be occupied by people who stole steel from the rails themselves. There was a widely repeated story of a segment of track sawed clean off, halting the Manila-Bicol line years ago, and it became an easy picture for the way many of us viewed those who lived beside the railway: as troublemakers, the batang riles, or drifters, or people who existed beyond the rules that governed everyone else.
It turns out that not all impressions exaggerated by movies and headlines accurately reflect the communities that exist along these old PNR tracks.
Over time, many of these neighborhoods have settled into ordinary, stable communities. In the town of Lopez in Quezon Province, the old railway corridor now reveals something else entirely: a hub of local craftsmanship. Homes that once stood beside the tracks have become small manufacturing spaces, producing woven pamaypay made from buri or anahaw leaves, coconut-shell crafts, baskets and even blacksmith-made tools.
Beyond that, it is also a place where ingenuity is patching a band-aid to an ongoing problem: a novelty ride that offers visitors a unique experience while serving as a daily lifeline for local commuters navigating the country’s neglected transportation system.
Riding my first “Skate”
Together with members of the Tourism Promotions Board Philippines (TPB), the marketing arm of the Department of Tourism, we set out to scout communities that could be included in the agency’s community-based tourism (CBT) program. Our journey took us along the old Philippine National Railways tracks in the town of Lopez in Quezon Province, and getting the chance to ride the region’s most unconventional form of transport: the so-called “skates.”
My first ride on a skate was a lesson in local initiative. Rather than letting the abandoned tracks fall into decay, residents had repurposed them into a makeshift railway for hand-built trolleys. Constructed from wood, steel, and salvaged materials, these vehicles move along rusted rails, powered by pedals or by hand, their clattering wheels echoing across fields and small villages.
Known locally as skates and sometimes jokingly referred to as “kits” or “bullet trains”, these trolleys carry schoolchildren, passengers, and market goods, following the same route once traversed by PNR trains. In communities long underserved by conventional public transport, the skates have become more than a novelty: they are a practical, grassroots solution, connecting people to schools, markets, and neighboring towns, and sustaining daily life along a railway that has largely been left behind.
Discovering Lopez’ Craft Hub Along the Tracks
Also in the same tracks in Lopez, where the old PNR trails stretch across Quezon, we stumbled upon a handful of backyard industries or, more accurately, garage workshops. Men and women were weaving baskets, another group crafting fans from anahaw leaves, and just a few dozen meters away, a blacksmith forging knives and small swords in front of his home.
Amid these pockets of creativity, one workshop drew us to stay and observe longer than the rest. Its owner, Mang Jessie, was not just crafting objects, he was shaping stories from discarded materials, turning ordinary scraps into something extraordinary.
Jessie: From Stroke Survivor to Skilled Artisan
His name is Jesus Abatayo, known to his neighbors as Mang Jessie.
During the long lockdown, when his small coconut store slowed, Abatayo began experimenting with husks and shells he once discarded. “He just started shaping them into little things,” his wife, Avanceña, recalled. “Before we knew it, there were flowers, animals, even tiny houses”, she tells us in Tagalog.
What began as a lockdown experiment grew into an unexpected livelihood. From shaping coconut husks to smiling faces, animals and other objects, his pieces, sold for a few hundred pesos, have become cherished fixtures in the community.
A stroke survivor for more than a decade, Abatayo has done more than carve out an income. In turning scraps into items of beauty, he has shown his neighbors that reinvention, like art, often grows from the most ordinary materials.
Together, the crafters of Lopez and the skate drivers form a strong network, proving that even amid institutional neglect in basic services like transportation and livelihood, the community finds ways to harness creativity and resourcefulness.
