NEWS

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

FILIPINOS are now tasting and seeing the effects of the government’s thrust to improve the state of infrastructure in the Philippines, but these are just bits of what has yet to come, as the country enters the touted Golden Age of Infrastructure starting 2020.

Public Works Secretary Mark A. Villar briefs journalists from the ALC Media Group on developments in the “Build, Build, Build” program at Tuesday’s BM Coffee Club forum in Makati City. Villar debunked claims by a senator that the flagship projects initiative is a “failure.”

Public Works Secretary Mark A. Villar said the Philippines is making strides in implementing the P1-trillion “Build, Build, Build” (BBB) program, assuring the public that a good number of projects will be completed within the term of this administration.

“We are in the midst of the Build, Build, Build program—by any metric we are already there. In fact, next year we can expect even more projects to be delivered. We should keep in mind that many flagship projects take several years to build.

As we finish our third year, I believe people will start feeling the full effect of the program,” he said at the BusinessMirror Coffee Club on Tuesday.

By disbursements alone, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), he said, is on track to obligate P2 trillion worth of projects—some of which are included in the list of infrastructure deals of the BBB Program—by 2020.

“You can see the scale, and it’s really massive in terms of volume. Coming into next year we can expect to see inaugurations happening one after the other,” Villar said. “The Golden Age of Infrastructure is happening as we speak. We see the momentum. The floodgates will open in terms of projects.”

Today, the DPWH—mostly through the Public-Private Partnership Program—has helped ease up traffic congestion in Metro Manila. It has opened key portions of certain expressways, such as the Skyway and the Harbor Link for motorists.

“The day will come and we’re not that far away we’re almost there. We’re just seeing tastes today,” Villar said.

Villar heads the Duterte administration’s key infrastructure thrust. The government hopes to complete almost a third—or about 24 projects for the DPWH alone—of the critical infrastructure list within the term of President Duterte. These include nationally dispersed, key infrastructure, such as bridges, expressways, disaster relief and reduction facilities, and national roads, among others.

He said the government is inching closer to the Golden Age of Infrastructure such that it will deliver one critical piece of infrastructure by April 2020, the third stage of the Skyway System. This is expected to remove as many as 100,000 vehicles from Edsa and cut travel time from Makati to Balintawak to as fast as 20 minutes from almost two hours today.

“The plan is by the second half of the administration, you’ll be able to see the influx of all these major infrastructure, then before this administration’s term ends you will feel that Golden Age — that I guarantee,” Villar said.

Source: Business Mirror