It didn't take long for our trip to the Philippines to pay off.

Last month, City Councilmen Romy Cachola and Nestor Garcia and I led a delegation of 24 people from Honolulu to the Philippines. One of our many stops was at Laoag City, where Mayor Michael Farinas and I reaffirmed our sister-city relationship, Honolulu's oldest such arrangement.

We also invited Farinas, and all of the other officials we visited, to come to Honolulu not only for our yearlong celebration of the City and County of Honolulu's centennial, but also for the Filipino Centennial Trade Expo in December 2006. That will be the culminating event of Hawai'i's Filipino Centennial Celebration.

This month, Farinas and his chief of staff came to Honolulu for our City Lights festivities and for the gala dinner that kicked off Hawai'i's Filipino Centennial and to confirm that Laoag City will send a delegation to participate in the trade expo here next year. Laoag is the capital of Ilocos Norte, where many Filipinos in Hawai'i have their roots.

The Laoag delegation will join the City of Manila and, hopefully, others at the expo, which is being cosponsored by Honolulu and will be held at the Hawai'i Convention Center.

Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, a big fan of Hawai'i, also promised his city's participation in the expo when I visited his city. Like Laoag, Honolulu has a sister-city relationship with Manila and several other cities we visited, including Bacarra and Vigan, Councilman Cachola's hometown. I was adopted as an official son of both Bacarra and Vigan.

As the honorary chairman of the advisory committee for the Filipino Centennial Celebration Commission, I briefed leaders of the Filipino community about our trip at the recent centennial kickoff gala.

We were greeted with much aloha everywhere we went in the Philippines, especially in Manila, a metropolis of 10 million people. Traffic in "metro Manila" makes Honolulu's worst H-1 Freeway congestion seem like a drive in the countryside.

And it would be much worse without the three existing rail transit lines, which carry more than 400,000 passengers a day. The trains run on guideways that are, for the most part, elevated above street-level. Fares generally run about 12 to 15 pesos, or about two U.S. dollars.

Mayor Atienza took us for a ride on the "Megatren" Purple Line, or Line 2. Opened in 2003, it was smooth and quiet, much like the modern transit systems we rode in Japan in October. The Purple Line runs about nine miles east-west through Manila, with 11 stops. The trains are fully automated, and tickets are purchased at vending machines.

Rail transit has proven its value enough that the current Line 1 is already being expanded and planning has begun on two rail lines to serve Manila's suburbs.

Still, thousands of cars jam Manila's streets. What transit does is give people a consistent, reliable transportation option, which is what we're trying to provide in Honolulu with the high-capacity transit corridor project.

Transit was but one item on the agenda for our five-day trip to the Philippines, which we undertook at the invitation of Atienza and Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

We promoted both centennial celebrations — Honolulu's and Filipinos in Hawai'i. I extended an invitation to visit Honolulu to top Filipino business leaders in addresses to the American Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club of Makati, the Ilocos Norte Chamber of Commerce and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, as well as to the many government leaders we met.

We found many ties between the Philippines and Hawai'i. The past queen of the town of Bacarra, it turns out, is from 'Ewa Beach. Her parents — Dad is a chef at Ko Olina and Mom is a nurse — immigrated to O'ahu from Bacarra.

I'm sure Gov. Linda Lingle and Kaua'i Mayor Bryan Baptiste will find many such ties when they lead a state delegation to the Philippines next month. The same goes for Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa, who is scheduled to go there in April.

Trips like these can only strengthen "Pagsasamahan Ng Pilipinas at Honolulu" — Ho-nolulu's ties with the Philippines — as we each enter our next century together.

Mufi Hannemann is the mayor of Honolulu.