NEWS

By: Christia Marie Ramos

Sen. Manny Pacquiao during a Senate session. Senate PRIB file photo / Cesar Tomambo

MANILA, Philippines — A bill seeking to adopt and fund a 30-year national infrastructure master plan has been filed in the Senate.

If passed into law, Senate Bill No. 2122, filed by Senator Manny Pacquiao, will institutionalize the Duterte’s administration’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program.

According to the measure, the national infrastructure plan will span from 2023 to 2052, covering major infrastructure projects of the national government on transport, energy, water resources, information and communications technology (ICT), and social infrastructure, including projects under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements and partnerships with local government units (LGUs).

“This plan seeks to accelerate infrastructure spending and support industries that will yield robust development, create jobs and improve the lives of Filipinos,” Pacquiao said in the bill’s explanatory note.

“Its ultimate goals are to reduce poverty, encourage economic growth, and reduce congestion,” he added.

The senator said the need for a long-term plan was “further underscored by the the recent succession of destructive typhoons and floods, and with the recent devastation from the COVID pandemic.”

“This calls for strategic infrastructure projects based on an overall long-range program so as to better use limited resources for more effective and lasting engineering and related measures to mitigate losses from these calamities,” he said.

The bill stressed the need for a 30-year program for national infrastructure that is “systematic and continuing” and is implemented “across administrations.”

“This will better rationalize the traditional medium-term and annual programs,” Pacquiao said.

“This long-term master plan will provide continuity in the development and implementation of the projects in the program, across [a]dministrations,” he added.

According to the bill, the infrastructure master plan will “serve as the overall guide for the desired locations, magnitudes, interrelationships, and timing of public and private investments in infrastructure in the Philippines over the next three decades to maximize their impact to the economy and society.”

“The Master Plan shall, therefore, provide an overall road map for the construction industry, investors, and allied sectors in pursuing their long-term strategies,” it added.

Under the bill, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), in coordination with concerned oversight and implementing agencies, will be tasked to formulate the details of the 30-year plan, to be divided into medium-term programs, including their component projects with their respective descriptions, scopes, cost estimates, priorities, funding requirements, schedules, financing and implementation modalities, and implementing agencies.

Further, the NEDA will be required to review and update the national master plan at the end of each medium-term program, “or oftener if necessary, taking into account changes in development policies, in economic, physical and social conditions, and in the status of the projects in the master plan, among other factors.”

Master plan funding

The proposed annual budget allocation for the 30-year master plan under the bill is at least five percent of the Gross Domestic Product, provided that the highest budgetary priority to education as mandated by the Constitution is still observed.

The budget allocation for the master plan, according to the bill, should be consistent with the government’s long-term expenditure framework within the budget ceilings set by the Development Budget Coordinating Committee (DBCC) as well as with “realistic levels” of private sector investments under PPP schemes.

“The NEDA and the DBM shall also establish the infrastructure budget allocation for each Implementing Agency, taking into account the priorities of the projects as well as the absorptive capacity and performance record of the Agency in project implementation and budget utilization,” the bill further stated.

Source: Inquirer.Net