Project partners
 15 May 2008

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At the General Membership Meeting of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) last week, I presented the latest updates and developments on the infrastructure program of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

With 30,000 members and 100 chapters in practically all provinces and major cities nationwide, PCCI is a potent and reliable partner of government in bringing vital programs and services to our people. The Chamber is committed to help the government monitor these infrastructure projects and ensure that they are completed on time and in the most cost-effective and transparent manner.

Estimated to cost more than P800 billion for this year alone, the infrastructure projects of the Arroyo Administration will be implemented from 2006 to 2010. This program under the 2006-2010 MediumTerm Public Investment Program will cost a total of P2.4 trillion.

A steering committee composed of representatives from different sectors was created by the President with the mandate "to be merciless in ripping through undue obstacles in the way of overdue priority infrastructure projects." And it is no coincidence that the business sector representative to the PPS is the Special Envoy for International Trade and PCCI Chairman Emeritus Donald Dee.

With the support of local government units and the private sector, the government has invested in 23 priority infrastructure projects in the North Luzon Agribusiness Quadrangle or NLAQ. The Dingalan Port and the La Trinidad Processing Plant have been completed, while the completion of the Casecnan Irrigation Project is expected this December. NLAQ covers the Ilocos and Cordillera regions and northern part of Central Luzon.

Meanwhile, the PPS is implementing 38 priority projects in the Luzon Urban Beltway or LUB. As of end-February this year, four projects have been completed – the Cawit Port in Boac, Marinduque; the Lucena Port in Quezon; the Batangas Port in Batangas City; and the Subic Port in Zambales. The Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway, Southern Tagalog Arterial Road, Porac Interchange, and Kamanava Flood Control Projects are due for completion this year. LUB serves as a globally competitive logistics and services hub, spanning from Central Luzon to the CALABARZON, down to the provinces of Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro and Marinduque.

On the other hand, 53 priority infrastructure projects are set in Central Philippines. To date, 10 priority projects have been completed -- the New Iloilo and New Bacolod-Silay Airports, the Bohol Circumferential Road, and the Ports of Jagna, Maasin, Tubigon, Ubay, Pantao, Siquijor, and Limasawa. This year, we expect the completion of 16 more projects. The Central Philippines, with its central theme of Tourism Development, is composed of the entire Bicol Region, the Visayas, as well as the provinces of Palawan, Romblon, and the islands of Camiguin and Siargao.

A total of 27 priority infrastructure projects, which consist of seven airports, two ports, nine roads, eight power, and one major irrigation project are being implemented at the Mindanao Agribusiness Super Region. Three of these projects have been completed -- the Diosdado Macapagal Bridge in Butuan, the 21-Mega Watt Clean Coal Plant in Phividec, and the 950 Kilo Volt Photovoltaic Powerplant in Cagayan de Oro. We expect seven more projects to be completed this year which includes the Dinagat Island Road and the Airports in Zamboanga City, Butuan, Pagadian, Dumaguete, Dipolog City, Ozamis City, Cotabato City and Laguindingan.

Lastly, in the Cyber Corridor, the government is prioritizing two major infrastructure projects -- BIR Revenue Dash Board the Cyber Education Project. In addition to this, the government is also developing ICT hubs across the country. The Cyber Corridor spans from Baguio to Davao, which promotes information and communications technology and the knowledge economy.

The PPS has already conducted a series of national government infrastructure forums nationwide, as part of President Arroyo’s commitment to business community and other stakeholders to regularly apprise them of the status of the priority infrastructure projects, receive their feedback, and resolve implementation issues as promptly as possible.

It is from forums like this and meetings like the First general membership meeting of PCCI that public-private partnerships are forged, to better meet the outcomes we expect from our government programs affordable food, improved social services, peace and order, and a better way of living.

(My apologies to the President, my readers and editors. My column last Tuesday, May 13, 2008, was actually the March 13, 2008 piece, A Good Day, which was inadvertently mixed up with today’s column. The confusion was in the transmission of the files.)

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