Gov’t reviving PPP to include airports

The Marcos administration will revive and enhance the public-private partnership (PPP) program, with an initial plan of offering the management and operations of some airports to nongovernment enterprises.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said they will bring back the PPP scheme under the Marcos administration’s infrastructure program to “ease the pressure” on the government's Ʃscal space.

“We need to revive, enhance the PPP because it has potential for contributing to the buildup of our infrastructure. That will also sort of ease the pressure on our Ʃscal space,” Balisacan told reporters.

By doing so, Balisacan noted that state resources will be given primarily to social services, particularly support for health, education and agriculture.

“With respect to priorities, ideally we would want the PPP to consider the solicited list of public investment projects. Our immediate concern is to expand that list and update it, make it responsive to the private sector in our country,” Balisacan said.

“But at the same time, also open to unsolicited to the extent that it doesn't distort the unsolicited projects,” he added.

According to Balisacan, who heads the National Economic and Development Authority, he and Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno have discussed certain “areas” where unsolicited PPP would be welcomed, such as operations management of airports.

“There are some airports where we can actually offer them for unsolicited or solicited proposals that the private sector will operate the airports. We might consider those,” Diokno said.

"Bohol, for example, we constructed the Bohol International Airport. I think it will signiƩcantly improve the operations and management of that airport if the private sector will run it,” he added. “We might consider giving it to the private sector.”

The previous administration had dropped the traditional PPP mode, by replacing it with a “hybrid” PPP in which the government would build and Ʃnance the infrastructure projects and later, auction off the operation and maintenance aspects to the private sector.

According to former Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, “hybrid” PPP is faster to rollout as it avoids the protracted negotiations and disputes that often delayed the implementation of traditional PPP initiatives.