Panay Railways Inc. is a government-owned and controlled corporation of the Philippines headquartered in La Paz, Iloilo City on the island of Panay. It is a subsidiary of Phividec Railways Inc. of the Philippine Veterans Investment Development Corporation (Philvedec). The railway currently doesn't operate any trains but it leases the property that it owns and the revenue is used to defray the personnel and administrative costs incurred from looking after its assets. The company has been owned in succession by the Rehabilitation Finance Corporation which became the Development Bank of the Philippines (1945–74), and then it was sold to the Philippine Veterans Investment Development Corporation (Philvedec) (1974–79) In 1979, management and operations were transferred to the Philippine Sugar Commission (Philsucom) which changed the company's name to the current Panay Railways, Inc. On September 26, 1995, PHIVIDEC re-took ownership of Panay Railways from the Sugar Regulatory Administration, Philsucom's successor. History In December 1905, a syndicate composed of William Salomon and Company, International Banking Corporation, Heidelbach, Ickelheimer and Company, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, Charles M. Swift, H. R. Wilson, and J. G. White and Company was the sole bidder for the right to construct railroads on Cebu, Panay and Negros. In 1906, the syndicate was awarded the concession and the Philippine Railway Company Inc. was incorporated in the state of Connecticut, United States on March 5, 1906 . On May 28, 1906, the Philippine government formally passed an act granting the company the concession. The company became part of a "Manila syndicate", a collection of Philippine infrastructure companies including the Manila Electric Railway and Light Company, the Manila Construction Company, and the Manila Suburban Railways Company. Later the Philippine Railways Construction Company was added. Construction began on a railroad from Iloilo City to Roxas City in Capiz with crews working from both cities and meeting in the middle in 1907. Crews working from the north and south met at the railway track's highest elevation in a flag stop near Passi's border with Dumarao, later called Summit. Operations began immediately upon completion. In 1937, after three decades of operations, the railroad had not yet earned a profit. In 1939, three individuals were convicted in a fraud scheme involving bonds from the then Philippine Railway Company. In 1937, bonds in the "sick, sugary-hauling road" were selling for about US$11 and were about to mature apparently worthless. The price of the bonds then rose rapidly to