Right of way

Government has right of eminent domain, which means if a piece of property is required for a road, railroad or any other public infrastructure, government can get that property, but must pay the owner just compensation. Many times, this ends up in court over the computation of compensation.

When a government agency like the DPWH has a project to widen a road or build a new road, it secures what is known as the right of way. Many worthy projects are delayed because of right of way problems.

An infra agency like the DPWH has a unit that does nothing but right of way acquisitions. The staff is experienced on how to get this done as fast as possible, taking into account the requirements of the law.

But sometimes, even the DPWH is not that successful in securing right of way in a timely manner. Take that NAIA Expressway project that San Miguel is undertaking after paying DPWH P11 billion for the right to build it under the PPP program. But it is delayed because DPWH has failed to completely deliver the right of way.

The not so funny thing is that the most contentious ROW problems were experienced with other government agencies like the Air Force and LRTA. The project needed a portion of Villamor Air Base, and for some reason, the generals made negotiations difficult. That’s why the public is suffering horrendous traffic jams in the area.

The other difficult government agency is LRTA. The project alignment will take a small portion of the LRTA depot for LRT-1. For some reason, it was difficult for DPWH to talk to DOTC to facilitate delivery of the ROW.

I understand there are still serious ROW problems along the alignment of the NAIA Expressway that involves informal settlers in Pasay. What I don’t understand is why government agencies can’t help each other for the public good.

The other big infra project that may not be completed any time soon is the skyway extension passing over the South Superhighway from Makati to the Paco train station, across Pasig River and into San Juan and Sta Mesa over Araneta Avenue and on to connect SLEX to NLEX. This project will relieve traffic on EDSA and provide quick access to Clark International Airport. It should be fast tracked.

The acquisition of ROW is being handled by the Toll Regulatory Board. Why the TRB insisted on doing this is questionable, given that they have little or no experience in acquiring ROW. They should have asked DPWH for help.

This is another San Miguel project which may not be completed soon, through no fault of San Miguel. They have started working on the Makati side and on the Balintawak side in the hope the elevated expressway will be connected in the Sta. Mesa area.

The delay, which may end up being indefinite, means we wasted resources on a project that will not be completed in time. That will mean opportunity cost for the private sector investor in a vital public infra. Our bureaucrats have no appreciation of the time value of money.

The way I see it, there should be no ROW problems if P-Noy was more hands on and if he made it clear to his officials he wanted those projects completed expeditiously. He will hate this comparison but yes, PGMA did better than him in this area.

I was still working for the Lopez Group when rehabilitating the NLEX was one of our major infra projects. Ping de Jesus was in charge and he was given a very definite deadline to meet. It was important to get the project earning within the planned time horizon because payments will have to be made on borrowed funds.

There were some ROW problems in areas where we expanded interchanges. While it was government’s obligation to deliver the ROW to us, we helped actively, even advancing the cost of acquiring needed properties.

Still, there were problems that required judicial rulings. We went to PGMA with the problem and she assigned Rene Diaz to oversee a solution.

A special court was eventually assigned to handle all our ROW cases and we were able to take possession of the needed properties in time for us to meet deadlines.

That happened only because former president PGMA had the political will to get the project completed. She saw the ROW problems as administrative procedures that had administrative solutions. The help of the judiciary was sought and obtained, and that was it.

Now I hear the LRT1 extension project to Cavite will also be delayed because of ROW problems. They do not have all the land needed in the alignment, so they cannot start construction. Worse, they apparently bought land under the ROW budget that is not in the LRT1 alignment.

They might not even have a proper depot to park the trains that will soon be ordered from Japan and should start arriving in two years. We may have a problem of having trains but no rails. It is not an improvement of our current problem of not enough trains.

That four-kilometer Daang Hari Road project of Ayala was also delayed because of ROW problems, among others, that took a lot of time to resolve.

Then there is the Mactan International Airport project DOTC awarded to a private consortium as part of the PPP program. They awarded it without informing the Air Force that they have to move because their building is located in land that is now the site of the new terminal. That problem has been resolved but delayed the project by about a year.

The worse part of government’s ROW problems is government’s insistence on meeting the original schedule of delivery. No regard is given to the fact that it was not the private party’s fault ROW was delivered late.

Given that we have a lot of needed infra projects to start and complete at the shortest possible time, government must have the capability of getting ROW on time. We seem to have a bunch of fumbling bureaucrats who cannot handle basic requirements for those infra projects.

Inevitably, the credit and the blame ends up with the President, as in Mamasapano. Hopefully, the next one will take a more direct hand and have real political will to get our infra projects done quickly, and no excuses.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.