DPWH's position on vital expressway projects

This has further reference to the column article of Mr. Cito Beltran entitled, “More power or more partners” that has been published on the Aug. 15, 2012 edition of the Philippine Star and the column article entitled, “Beef for brains” published on Sept. 5, 2012. In the articles, Mr. Beltran made it appear that I was impeding the implementation of Citra-San Miguel Corp.’s Toll Road Connector in order to favor the NLEX-SLEX Connector Project of Metro Pacific which allegedly competes with the former.

While I have never denied my former affiliation with the Metro Pacific group, and it is something that has been extensively written about since I was appointed as DPWH Secretary, I have never used such former affiliation to advance the interest of any of its business undertakings. The DPWH has been very objective in processing Metro Pacific’s proposal by ensuring that all procedures are being conducted in accordance with the requirements of law. For the record, the unsolicited proposal was submitted and acted upon by the DPWH during the watch of my predecessor, which I inherited when I was appointed to the DPWH.

With regard to the Citra-San Miguel Corp.’s Toll Road Connector, the DPWH did not prevent the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) from proceeding with its implementation and I even personally attended the board meeting of TRB last Sept. 6, 2012 during which the legal terms for the implementation of the Citra-San Miguel Corp.’s project were presented. I also took the opportunity to express to TRB’s multi-agency membership my department’s unqualified support for the Citra-San Miguel project knowing the relevance of such vital infrastructure project to Metro Manila.

The two projects are being processed for eventual implementation in accordance with the directive of the President and consequently, it is incumbent upon us to whom the instruction was given to see to it that the directive is being carried out in accordance with law. The appeal to the Office of the President is part of the process of legal due diligence that we have to go through which was submitted before the final approval of the two projects.

Hoping that this clarification will merit a space in your esteemed publication.

Warm regards.