Senate calls officials over big project delays

THE Senate has summoned ranking Executive officials to appear on Monday’s inquiry to explain “delays” bugging early completion of multibillionpeso “Build, Build,Build” projects lined up under the Duterte administration.

This, even as Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance spearheading scrutiny of the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020, indicated over the weekend that a “reconfiguration” of the list of flagship projects “would mean all the projects will either commence or be completed before the end of the Duterte administration.”

Angara saw it “as a positive development because only those projects that will actually be started under the current administration were included in the list. Many of these projects will not be completed in 2022, but what is important is that work on these will start already and will be continued by the next administration,” Angara said, adding: “Ang importante hindi nasasayang ang pera. Nagagamit ito para sa kapakanan ng kababayan natin [what’s important is, money is not wasted. It’s used for public welfare].”

Angara acknowledged there could be a “variety of reasons for the delays,” and that pinpointing these would require a closer scrutiny of the processes involved.

He noted that from the initial proposal submitted either by the agency, a foreign-funding source or a local proponent, these projects would have to go through a feasibility study and evaluation by the different bodies within the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Board.

However, Angara suggested on Sunday that “improvements may be needed to address delays” even as he hastened to clarify that Duterte’s Build, Build, Build could not be considered “a failure” as claimed by administration critics.

In spite of some issues in the prioritization of a number

of flagship programs of the administration, Angara said over the weekend he“does not agree with the observation that the Build, Build, Build program has been a failure.”

He noted that, in fact, the Duterte administration even “managed to step up its spending on infrastructure,” seeing this as “a positive development.”

Stressing that “it [BBB] is definitely not a failure,” the senator cited the simultaneous projects under way.“With so many projects, with so much resources going into infrastructure; if we compare the yearly infrastructure spending, that certainly posted an increase. So to me, it cannot be a dismal failure.”Angara recalled that criticisms over the President’s touted Build, Build, Build were aired in the wake of reports that of the 75 flagship projects listed in the Neda web site, “only nine were implemented already.”

The senator noted, however, that both Presidential Adviser on Flagship Programs and Projects vince Dizon and Public Works Secretary Mark villar promptly issued clarifications that the list was not updated and was “just a small part of a bigger list of projects under the BBB.”

According to Angara, he was informed that the Duterte administration has “since amended” its list of flagship projects that now contains “a total of 100 items.”

Dizon, he said, has confirmed the list has been updated to “remove those that would no longer be feasible during the last years of the administration and to include only the ones that will actually be started between now and the early part of 2022.”

The senator disclosed that the report submitted by Dizon “indicated that 35 are already ongoing, 32 will commence construction in six to eight months, 21 are already in the advanced

stages of approval and 12 are in the advanced stages of feasibility studies.”

Villar, over 9K kms of roads,

2,709 bridges completed

AT the weekend, Public Works Secretary villar noted that since President Duterte assumed position in June 2016, a total of 9,845 km of roads, 2,709 bridges, 4,536 flood control projects, 82 evacuation centers and 71,803 classrooms have already been completed under the Build, Build, Build program.

“The Build, Build, Build program is composed of thousands of projects meant to improve connectivity, facilitate growth in every province across the country. In DPWH [Department of Public Works and Highways] alone, we are currently implementing at least 20,000 projects under the Build, Build, Build program,”villar noted.

“In 2018 alone, the DPWH disbursed P590 billion with an absorptive capacity of 92.6 percent. This is the highest recorded disbursement in the history of the department,” he added.

The Build Build Build program is in furtherance of the mediumterm goal to increase infrastructure spending— from 5.4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2017, to 7.3 percent by the end of President Duterte’s term in 2022.

Historically, the Philippines has only allocated an average of 2.4 percent of its GDP for infrastructure in the span of six administration in the last 50 years.

“The 100 flagship projects, which is a subset of the BBB program, are the most important, game-changing projects that will have the biggest impact for many Filipinos,”villar added.