NEDA proposes P15 trillion projects for Marcos OK

MANILA, Philippines — The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Infrastructure Committee is looking at P15 trillion worth of projects to be proposed to President Marcos for implementation in the medium term.

During the Makati Business Club’s F2F with Cabinet Secretaries event yesterday, NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said the NEDA Infrastructure Committee will meet today to finalize the list of projects to be recommended to the NEDA Board chaired by the President on March 9.

“That list is quite a big number of projects. Indicatively, we are talking about 3,700 projects worth P15 trillion in the medium term,” he told reporters.

He said these projects are being proposed to be part of the Public Investment Program, which lists the government’s priority projects.

Of the 3,700, he said 98 are public-private partnership (PPP) projects in the pipeline worth P3.044 trillion.

The bulk or 45 of the PPP projects in the pipeline are on transport, 14 are roads, 11 on property development, eight on water and sanitation, six on health, five on information and communications technology, three on tourism, three on solid waste management and three on energy.

Balisacan said the list includes projects that have been prepared under previous administrations and those returned to proponents.

“Hopefully, the Cabinet, the President will approve that. We have identified what are likely PPP, but we are open to accommodating any of those as candidates for PPP,” he said.

From the list that would be approved by the President, he said the government would be coming up with a shorter list of flagship projects.

“This is what we will really focus on. It has to be very consistent, relevant to the PDP (Philippine Development Plan). Those are the ones that will address constraints to growth and employment generation as identified in the PDP,” he said.

He also said that not all projects to be approved would be implemented immediately.

“Some of them will spill into the next administration. We don’t know yet what those ones are. But since they will be developed over time, not all those projects will be implemented right away,” he said.

He said tapping the private sector for infrastructure development is the way to go given the government’s limited resources.

“The fiscal space is very narrow because a lot of the responses to the pandemic have raised the level of debt high, and while some say that we have enough space, personally, I don’t think so. Unfortunately, we are a country which does not have a good history of sustained economic development,” he said.

While the government has already amended the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) law implementing rules and regulations to make PPPs more attractive for the private sector by addressing the concerns raised on the financial viability and bankability of the projects, he said much more need to be done.

NEDA is also pushing for the amendment of the BOT law.

“That will improve the governance of PPP, removing the obstacles, the challenges in PPP, clarifying rules of the game,” Balisacan said.