How to build a nation

In his message to the UP College of Engineering Class of 2015, Metro Pacific Group chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan posed a very important question: How do we build a nation?

He says that for First Pacific, it has invested heavily in infrastructure in the Philippines because “it is an essential building block of nation building.”

Pangilinan said in his July 5 speech that their tollways group has just recently won the bid to build the Cavite-Laguna Expressway or Calax.

According to him, Metro Pacific will spend no less than P50 billion to build a 45-km tollway from Cavitex to (Santa Rosa) Laguna. “This will spur growth in NCR and Calabarzon, and create jobs. It will improve traffic and property values. Tourism will rise in the area. Overall, we become a better nation,” MVP added.

A few days after or on July 10, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and MPCALA Holdings Inc., a unit of the Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), signed the concession deal for Calax, said to be the government’s biggest road project under the Public-Private Partnership program (PPP).

Also on July 10, MPCALA Holdings handed over to DPWH a whopping P5.46-billion representing the 20 percent upfront payment of the P27.3 billion. The balance of this concession fee is payable over nine years or until July 2024.

On top of the P5.4- billion downpayment, MPCALA also reimbursed the government about P36.07 million in transaction fees.

Based on news reports, MPIC is actually spending as much as P62.7 billion on the four-lane Calax, which will connect the Manila- Cavite Toll Expressway ( Cavitex), which is run by MPIC’s Cavitex Infrastructure Corp. (CIC), to the South Luzon Expressway (SLEx).

Construction work will take place from July 2016 to July 2020.

MPCALA has made an aggressive offer to win Calax, as it is part of a grand scheme to make travel between and among Northern, Central and Southern Luzon a better experience for motorists and passengers alike.

MPIC runs the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) which will soon be seamlessly connected to the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX). Then there is proposed Connector Road project that will link NLEX to SLEX, which will in turn be connected to Cavitex and Calax. And of course, the group is looking at other PPP projects that will be put on the auction block, such as the Central Luzon Link Expressway (CLLEX) that will extend SCTEX eastward to Nueva Ecija.

MPIC unit Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. ( MPTC) is expanding NLEX from Bulacan to Caloocan and Manila’s port area through several Harbor Link sub-projects. There is also a project that will extend NLEX to Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City and another one that will integrate NLEX and SCTEX with the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX).

Roads and other transportation facilities, power generation and other utilities, and communications systems are what are referred to as “core” infrastructure. Transport networks connect producers and consumers to markets, utilities provide essential inputs such as power and water for both production and consumption, and communications networks facilitate the exchange and dissemination of information and knowledge. As such, infrastructure is an indispensable input in an economy’s production, one that is highly complementary to other more conventional inputs such as labor and non-infrastructure capital. ( www.imf.org)

Incidentally, the Metro Pacific Group provides electricity (via Meralco), water (Maynilad), telecommunications (PLDT and Smart), and builds and maintains a massive network of roads, among others.

For a developing country like the Philippines, the impact of new infrastructure projects is more pronounced. All these road projects mentioned are expected to help ease port congestion and provide alternate routes to businesses getting their goods out of the Manila-based ports. Not to mention the expected easing up of traffic along EDSA and C-5 once the NLEX-SLEX Connector Road project is there.

CCTV monitoring

Local newspapers reported just recently that Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) commissioner Kim Henares will order leading cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp. (PMFTC) to install CCTV cameras in its production lines and warehouses to allow government to monitor its volume of production and to ensure that the proper taxes are paid.

According to Henares, the move is an offshoot of the recent seizure of large amounts of untaxed cigarettes or those without the required strip tax stamps during raids of various distribution and retail outlets in Batangas and Nueva Ecija by anti-tax fraud agents.

Most of the items, according to the news reports, were Marlboro cigarettes which PMFTC manufactures.

The BIR had earlier installed CCTV cameras at the factory of another cigarette maker Mighty Corp. in Bulacan. PMFTC controls more than 90 percent of the local cigarette market.

The rule requiring PMFTC and other tobacco firms to install CCTV cameras at their plants will be provided in a revenue regulation that will be issued soon.

BIR’s move is a step in the right direction since it goes to show that alleged smuggling efforts and non-payment of taxes, even by the largest cigarette manufacturer and brand, will not be allowed to go unpunished by the government.

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