Pernia hits ADB for 'little' support for Philippine infrastructure, important areas

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ top socioeconomic planner on Thursday urged the Asian Development Bank to invest more in the country’s infrastructure and population management, saying the Manila-based multilateral lender did not provide much help in those aspects.

At an event on the sidelines of the 51^st ADB annual meeting in Manila, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia hit the Bank for its “relatively little” contributions to “important areas.”

Pernia said the ADB inadequately supported the Philippines in terms of sustaining family planning programs, narrowing huge infrastructure gap, improving the quality of higher education and healthcare, and promoting science and technology.

Pernia also pointed out that the ADB did little to solve interregional disparity, citing the many lagging regions in the country that are still waiting to be connected to the mainstream economy.

“Nevertheless, for its current partnership in the Philippines and probably to make up for past failings, the ADB’s thrusts are to foster inclusive growth and reduce income inequality and regional disparity,” Pernia said.

Data from the ADB show the bank’s active lending portfolio for the Philippines totals $2.3 billion. Of that amount, 64 percent went to education while public sector management and rural development account for 11 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, the remainder of loans went to water, transport and energy projects.

According to Pernia, infrastructure “undergirds” all concerns in hitting sustainable development goals.

"The SDGs can almost automatically move by themselves because many things can be facilitated by infrastructure,” he explained.

More investments

For his part, ADB President Takehiko Nakao told a press conference that the multilateral lender plans to “invest more” in the restive region of Mindanao, as well as in Metro Manila to ease traffic congestion.

The Duterte administration plans to spend more than P8 trillion to upgrade the nation’s dilapidated infrastructure and aging ports to spur gross domestic product expansion until 2022.

In its Asian Development Outlook for 2018, the ADB kept its 2018 growth forecast for the Philippines at 6.8 percent, faster than the 6.7 percent clip in 2017.

For 2019, the lender said the Philippine economy will likely accelerate to 6.9 percent.

“Rising domestic demand, remittances, and employment, in addition to infrastructure spending, will drive growth” in the Philippines, the ADB said.