If outgoing President Duterte was cold to the concept of public private partnerships (PPP) for infrastructure projects, the incoming administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is keen on “enticing and inviting private sector through PPP for projects that are financially viable for them.”
At least this is how incoming Public Works and Highways Secretary Manuel Bonoan (who came from SMC Tollways) understood him.
Bonoan told ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) yesterday that the Marcos administration will work to entice more investors in its infrastructure program through PPPs, focusing on high-impact projects.
Duterte veered away from PPPs, a mode popularly used by his predecessor the Aquino administration, due to allegedly disadvantageous provisions such as state subsidies and sovereign guarantees.
As to how the projects will be funded with the government’s depleted budget, Bonoan said:
“We just have to be very selective on high-impact projects that we can now afford at this time — very selective in the sense that these are high-impact projects that can immediately contribute to the economic recovery.”
“We’ve realized that funds are very scarce at this time, although we will actually coordinate with the Department of Finance and the economic managers and get guidance from them on how we will continue with the Build, Build, Build program.”
Food production, tourism
Bonoan said Marcos Jr. also wants the DPWH to support the food production and tourism programs.
High-impact projects would include those that address traffic congestion to provide “unimpeded travel for the delivery of goods and services that will redound actually to lesser costs, most probably in the costs of commodities and services,” he said.
“We just have to reprioritize some of the projects in the pipeline, so… we will be selecting infrastructure projects, most especially in the road sector, which is the core function of the department, to get high-impact infrastructure projects that can contribute immediately to propel the much-needed economic recovery of the country,” Bonoan said.
Ensure quality of projects
At the same time, he vowed to address corruption and ensure the quality of projects, as well as be “prudent in using our resources.”
“We intend to correct all these. We need to reassess the modality of how our infrastructure [projects] are being undertaken this time and make sure that these are quality infrastructure that we are going to do. There are many things that we can correct immediately.”
Bonoan said the incoming president instructed him to ensure that unfinished infrastructure projects should be completed as soon as possible so these can help drive economic recovery.
Coming from San Miguel Corp. and his role in the government’s infrastructure projects now that he will be heading the DPWH, Bonoan explained that PPPs“are big projects that are not unilaterally decided by the DPWH” and will undergo scrutiny by the government.
In April, DPWH officials said the current administration had completed 12 out 119 flagship projects.
Of the 119 infrastructure flagship projects, seven were completed in 2020, including the P18-billion New Clark City Phase 1 and the P14.97-billion Clark International Airport Expansion Project, and five in 2021, including the P21.97-billion MRT-3 Rehabilitation Project.
The department expects the completion of seven more big projects by June 30 and 12 more by December, including the P45.29-billion Southeast Metro Manila Expressway Project and the P75-billion MRT-7 of SMC.
SMC announced on Tuesday that its infrastructure arm has already started construction on a 20-hectare property in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan that will serve as the train depot of the MRT-7 project.
DICT to improve connectivity
Also in the same program, Ivan John E. Uy, who will head the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), said the new administration will prioritize digitization and improving the country’s connectivity.
“One of the solutions we are looking at now is the Starlink project of Elon Musk. This will actually provide direct linkage without laying those expensive fiber optic cables,” he said in a separate ANC interview.
Uy—who headed the then Commission on ICT, which was replaced by DICT under Aquino--oversaw the formulation of the Philippine digital strategy from 2011 to 2016.