The coronavirus pandemic caused delays in the government’s massive infrastructure program rollout, a key official of the program said on Thursday.
“It (pandemic) had a huge impact. We practically lost at least six months for infrastructure.
And when I say infrastructure, I’m not just talking about public infrastructure. Our private sector partners have also lost that amount of time or maybe even more in terms of development,” said Presidential Adviser on Flagship Program and Projects and Bases and Conversion and Development Authority President and CEO Vivencio Dizon.
Dizon was one of the speakers in The Manila Times’ online forum, “Maximizing and Monetizing: Structures and Spaces.”
“In terms of percentage spending for infrastructure maybe we are at least down by maybe 40 percent,” Dizon said.
The government’s infrastructure spending from 2001 to 2010 only amounted to P100.3 billion, equivalent to around 1.6 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), he said.
It increased to P378.3 billion or 3 percent of GDP in 2011 to 2016 and further climbed to P932 billion (6 percent of GDP) in 2017 to 2019.
“We spent three times the spending in the previous ad-ministrations on a nominal basis and we spent double in terms of percentage of GDP,” Dizon said.
But 2020 changed everything not just for the Philippines but for the entire world.
“We are left with the situation that we will have negative growth of GDP for this year, and unfortunately our infrastructure spending will also take a hit because of the lockdowns we experienced in the second and third quarters,” he said.
More than 100 flagship projects are included in the government’s Build, Build, Build program with a total cost of P4.3 trillion.
Eight projects worth P370 billion in the Infrastructure Flagship Program (IFP), the main component of Build, Build, Build, have been shelved while their feasibility is being reviewed.
Dizon said 13 projects that aim to contribute to the pandemic response were added to the IFP list.
These are the Land Transportation Office Central Command Center; Motor Vehicle Recognition and Enhancement System; National Broadband Program; ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Capacity Development and Management Program; Water District Development Sector Projects; National Irrigation Sector Rehabilitation and Improvement Project; Balog-Balog Multipurpose Project Phase 2; Jalaur River Multipurpose Project; Lower Agno River Irrigation System; Metro Manila Logistics Network; NLEx Harbor Link Extension to Anda Circle; General Santos Airport; and the Virology Science and Technology Institute of the Philippines, which Dizon said would primarily conduct research on infectious diseases.
Dizon said, “Infrastructure and the development of our spaces will be a key factor in getting us out of the slump that the entire world is in.”
Among the completed projects are Harbor Link, extension of the Sangley airport; Luzon bypass in-frastructure of the Broadband project with Facebook; Angat Water Transmission Improvement Project; Laguna Lake Highway; Phase 1A of the New Clark City; Cagayan de Oro port; Pozorrubio and Rosario exit of the Tarlac; Pangasinan, La Union Expressway; and the new passenger terminal building of the Clark International Airport.
Nearing completion are the Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3, MRT 7, BGC to Ortigas link bridge, and Phase 1 of the Central Luzon Link Expressway.
Dizon acknowledged that “the six years of a presidency will not be enough to finish all the projects.”
“Our biggest problem in past decades has been continuity. When we put projects together, we are not saying that we are going to finish all, we’ve never said that because that is not possible. It’s going to take multiple administrations to finish and continuity is going to be the key,” he said.
“What we are putting together is a list of projects that we believe we can push so that the next person, president, administration can take this over and continue it and finish it,” he added.
For Dizon, the long-term commitment of multiple administrations is needed to get all these projects done.
“Maybe in 12 to 18 years you are going to see the Philippines really transform into a country that we’ve seen the likes of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and China have transformed in just a few decades,” he said.