DTI chief seeks to institutionalize ‘BBB’ infra buildup program beyond Duterte admin’s term

THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will be crafting a proposed bill institutionalizing the “Build, Build, Build” (BBB) program to secure funding for listed infrastructure projects even after the end of President Duterte’s term in 2022.

Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez on Wednesday said the government would propose a measure before Congress turning the Duterte administration’s infrastructure plan into a law. This way, he said, yearly funding for projects listed under it will be ensured, allowing for their uninterrupted implementation even after Duterte’s term.

“We should [craft a bill], but I haven’t seen one,” Lopez said in an interview with reporters. “In our last meeting, that was our proposal: to institutionalize [the infrastructure program]. We will have to craft a bill on that one.”

Lopez disclosed the plan is to incorporate in the measure a provision requiring the allocation of a certain portion of the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for the BBB infrastructure program. He said this would compel the next leaderships to complete all the public infrastructure planned and pursued by the Duterte administration.

To ensure the BBB institutionalization bill will be deliberated by legislators, the government is eyeing to include in its list of priority legislations, Lopez bared.

“It could be a percentage of the budget, keeping to this level if we want to continuously build the infrastructure and catch up. After the Duterte administration, I don’t know if they will keep that kind of aggressive infrastructure program of 5 percent to 7 percent of GDP,” the trade chief said, referring to the government’s target pushing the infrastructure to GDP ratio to 7.4 percent by 2022.

“This year we will propose also for it to be part of the legislative agenda. At the end of the day, it will still be the GAA,” he added. “There will still be allocation, but at least there is that law that can hopefully guide it every year in terms of what should be the allocation.”

The Build, Build, Build program, headlined by 100 big-ticket projects, is President Duterte’s economic plan aimed at erasing the country’s infrastructure backlog. The government is spending roughly P8.4 trillion until 2022 for this program, accelerating in the process the ratio of infrastructure to gross domestic product (GDP) to 7.4 percent by the end of the Chief Executive’s term.

The institutionalization of this multitrillion-peso plan will be crucial in the construction industry’s goal of boosting its value to as much as P130 trillion by 2030, targeting to grow an average 8 percent annually over the next years.

The industry is also moving to enlarge its labor force by over 82 percent to 7.1 million workers, from 3.9 million workers as of latest. As such, this should translate into production worth P21.3 trillion by 2030, from P2.3 trillion in 2018.

However, the industry has to overcome challenges in order to achieve its road map objectives, including high logistics and business transaction costs, slow adaption of digital and up to date technologies, emerging shortage of skilled labor, among others.

For one, 15 percent to 35 percent of the construction value chain goes to other costs of doing business, which include payment for red tape and anomalous transactions, according to Ronilo M. Balbieran, vice president of Research, Education and Institutional Development Foundation. This falls within the same range of money spent for raw materials that eat up the lion’s share of the value chain from 30 percent to 35 percent.

To this, Lopez vowed the government is upgrading the country’s procurement system, as well as shifting transactions to digital technology to reduce face-toface contact between state officials and bidding contractors.

“Part of our ease of doing business objectives is to minimize face-to-face contact,” Lopez said. “Hopefully, we can achieve open bidding in order to really remove occasions and opportunities for corruption. That’s the important thing. There has to be those systems.”