Infrastructure projects promised in previous SONA still unfinished

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine financial markets generally meet President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) with great cheer, usually posting gains a day after she makes her one-year report. But this year, investors are looking for more “action" rather than words to guide their trading decisions, an analyst said. After all, of the promised projects she made during her SONA last year, only 31.59 percent of SONA committed projects have only been finished, according to the end-2008 report of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). The same report also said that the DPWH was directly supervising 23 projects worth about P56.026 billion under the President’s SONA promises. These excluded projects under the Build-Operate and Transfer (BOT) scheme, toll concession agreements, and flood control. Under the North Luzon Agribusiness Quadrangle (NLAQ) – which covers, among others, the provinces of Banaue and Tugegarao – the DPWH had three projects with total cost of P7.585 Billion and an accomplishment rate of 15.82 percent. Another program, the Luzon Urban Beltway (LUB) – envisioned as a globally competitive logistics and services center – covers the Southern Tagalog region including the Marikina-Infanta road. Two projects under this program costing P3.898 billion is 40.73 percent finished, the same report said. The agency also said that it would facilitate inter-island island transportation, commerce, agribusiness and further enhance tourism including job generation in the Central Philippines Super Region through nine road improvement projects located in Regions 4-B, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Projects under this program, which has a funding amount of P24.010 billion, remain only 29.61 percent complete. For Mindanao, the DPWH also reported that the Arroyo administration had poured in a total of P20.533 billion for nine infrastructure projects which as of end of last year was only 37.98 percent complete. Although a lot more projects are still in the process of being built, the government has “underinvested in public infrastructure," University of the Philippines economist Benjamin Diokno said. “The promised additional light rail transit systems in Metro Manila have yet to be started. The existing three systems are not even linked, though work has been started," said Diokno, a former budget secretary. “The digital infrastructure is happening through private telecommunication firms, which suggests that there was really no need for the corruption-laden NBN-ZTE project," he added. As for decongesting Metro Manila, Diokno said the scheme was poorly conceptualized as more and more people should be allowed to live where they work. “The idea is not well thought out in the light of the ongoing world economic crisis. The trend for the future is to have denser cities, where people live where they work. However, the growing urban centers have to be connected to the lagging rural areas," he said. In addition, Diokno noted that no additional power capacity was built during Arroyo's term, bringing intermittent power failure in parts of the Visayas and Mindanao. A power crisis may likely be repeated in 2011, he added. “It could be sooner if it were not for the severe economic slowdown which muted demand for power. Water supply in Metro Manila has improved, but that was the outcome of decisions made during the term of Ramos," he said. - GMANews.TV