Villar sets completion of ₧2.5-trillion DPWH infra program under Duterte

DEPARTMENT of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Mark A. Villar is confident that his agency will finish its ongoing infrastructure projects within the term of President Duterte.

He listed the ongoing projects as follows: 15,134 kilometers of road construction, rehabilitation and widening; 1,859 bridge rehabilitation, retrofitting, replacement, and widening; 4,155 floodcontrol projects; 17,647 more classrooms, 186 school workshop buildings, and 99 evacuation centers.

“We are confident and we are really pushing to achieve our goal that by the end of this administration, every Filipino will be able to reap the benefits of these infrastructure projects that they very much deserve,” he said.

He noted that in the last five years, the agency “has implemented almost a three fold more projects than any administration in the last five decades.”

Villar said infrastructure projects implemented by his office amounted to P2.5 trillion, a 209-percent jump from the P820.4 billion worth from 2011 to 2015. This, he said, resulted in 6.6 million jobs from 2016 to 2020.

This year, the DPWH expects to generate an additional 1.6 million jobs based on its budget allocation.

Villar said between July 2016 and May 2021, DPWH was able to deliver the construction, maintenance, improvement, and widening of a total of 29,264 kilometers of roads which is composed of 13,294.54 kilometers of projects in Luzon, 5,427.06 kilometers in Visayas, and 10,542.88 kilometers in Mindanao.

These roads span from airport roads, seaport roads, tourism roads, and farm to market roads, among others.

Likewise, he said, the department delivered the construction, widening, rehabilitation, replacement, and retrofitting of 5,950 bridges nationwide or 2,905 in Luzon, 1,411 in Visayas, and 1,634 in Mindanao.

In terms of flood-prevention, mitigation, and control, the DPWH completed a total of 11,340 projects spread all over the country with 7,782 projects in Luzon, 1,752 in Visayas, and 1,806 in Mindanao.

Aside from these, the agency also built 223 new evacuation centers and 150,149 classrooms.