P2.2-T RP dev’t program okayed

President Arroyo and her Cabinet approved Friday night the P2.2-trillion package of projects under her administration’s Medium Term Philippine Investment Plan (MTPIP) for the next five years.

National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) director-general Romulo Neri presented the MTPIP to the President and his colleagues in the Cabinet.

In his report to the President, Neri said the total budget required for the MTPIP from 2005 to 2010 would amount to P2.2 trillion, P1.2 trillion of which would go to infrastructure alone.

Neri said the transport sector would need infrastructure, such as roads, bridges and other public works projects costing P502 billion.

Infrastructure for the power sector will cost P241 billion, P158 billion of which will be used for power generation projects to tap the country’s rich resource of geothermal energy.

Neri also included in his report a list of P100 billion worth of power projects, many of them for the green field power plants, including the Sucat and Malaya thermal plant conversions.

Another P16.3 billion must be spent on power transmission projects, including interconnection projects to energize 42,000 unelectrified barangays nationwide, Neri added.

A total P156 billion was earmarked for the construction of potable water supplies nationwide.

He also said a big component of the energy sector requirement is the extension of the natural gas pipeline from Malampaya on Palawan island to an existing pipeline in Batangas.

Neri also said construction of the South Rail and North Rail projects and the extension of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Loop and Light Rail Transit (LRT-1) require a P131-billion outlay.

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye described the first formal Cabinet meeting of 2005 as a two-hour session of "setting up milestones" for the implementation of the Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP).

The President christened her MTDP with the acronym "BEAT-THE-ODDS," which sums up her 10-point agenda to provide a balanced budget, education for all, automated elections, transport all over the country, termination of the peace process with all rebel groups, opportunities for employment, decentralize development decongest Metro Manila and promote Subic Bay Freeport in Zambales and Clark in Pampanga as logistics hubs.

Under the MTDP, Neri said, the Arroyo administration aims to achieve a 28 percent ratio of investments in the country’s annual gross domestic product, or an additional eight percent GDP.

In terms of pesos, he said, this would require P400 million a year in foreign and domestic investments over five years.

"We have to sell (the MTDP) to everybody," he said. "We have to market this to the business community because the plans depend a lot on their response in terms of high investments to GDP ratio."

He said the MTDP is neither ambitious nor unrealistic, but rather reflects the President’s determination to cut the 34 percent incidence of poverty by half by 2010.

"The most challenging (task) is the creation of six (million) to 10 million jobs, but I think we can do it if we really focus on things," Neri said. "If we can do that, we can resolve poverty."

"Good policies will help because job creation is a function of investors’ confidence," he added. "The most important bottom lines are the six to 10 million jobs."

He said the accomplishments of these basic tasks aim to raise the income level of Filipino households and reduce poverty incidence to 17 percent after six years.

"It’s what we call a fighting target," he said.

The Cabinet meeting was the fifth such meeting called by the President since she assumed the presidency on June 30 after winning the elections last year.

At the end of the Cabinet meeting, the President posed with all 25 members of her official family led by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita at Malacañang’s State Dining Hall.

Mrs. Arroyo was still wearing the powder blue terno she had donned for the traditional New Year’s Day vin d’honneur cocktail reception for the diplomatic community that preceded the Cabinet meeting that evening. — Marichu Villanueva