Critics have made a joke of the much vaunted flagship public works program of the Aquino administration called Public-Private-Partnership or PPP. The program did not take off for a year and a half after the initial list of projects was first announced.
The PPP is envisioned to help address government funding constraints. By tapping private sector resources, government hopes to build urgent infrastructure projects long been on the drawing board.
For lack of action, critics called PPP nothing more than a “powerpoint presentation”.
This is not true anymore, said Ruperto Majuca, second in command at the National Economic and Development Authority. At last week’s forum on Trade and Investment Development Talks called by the Board of Investments, Majuca announced the roll out of PPP this year. In fact, he said, NEDA had bidded out one project last December, the Daang-Hari road project. Twenty more big-ticket projects worth billions of pesos each are expected to be awarded in the first half of this year. Construction is expected to start in the second half.
The good news is that the bulk of the lined-up projects involve transportation facilities, mainly land and air.
Number one on the list is the CALA expressway, CALA meaning Cavite-Laguna which further extends the South Luzon Expressway. The project will cost about P20 billion.
Second is the LRT 1 extension project from the terminal in Pasay City to Kawit, Cavite at a cost of about P60 billion. This project has been in the pipeline since the time of former President Ferdinand Marcos.
LRT 2, on the other hand, will be extended from Santolan, in Marikina to Cogeo in Antipolo to the tune of P11 billion.
Perhaps more interesting to investors and travelers are the airport projects, four of them to be rolled out this year. A passenger terminal building at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport will be built at an estimated P3.15 billion. A new airport will likewise be up in the island-province of Bohol worth P8 billion.
In Surigao del Sur, the Laguindingan Airport will be built at a cost of P1.8 billion.
The airport at Puerto Princesa in Palawan will be modernized to support the growing number of tourists visiting the island’s famous underground river. No cost estimate has been made for this airport project.
Majuca stressed that those projects, including equally big ticket ones on school buildings, health facilities, electric power and drinking water supply, will be built on top of regular infrastructure projects lined up last year and this year.
With exports yet to recover in the second half of this year, he says that economic growth will be pulled up by vigorous government infrastructure spending. The budget for public works projects for the whole of this year has been released in advance to the implementing agencies.
The government is finally moving in the infrastructure front and this time around, the NEDA executive assures, it will be doing this the “straight way”.
