The Marcos administration is not just building infrastructure, but building a brighter future for all Filipinos.
Big-ticket projects under the Department of Transportation’s belt are not only delivering much-needed socio-economic benefits but also reviving and revitalizing the country’s transportation industry.
Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said the government is speeding up the completion of other projects in the road, aviation, and maritime sectors as convenient and efficient access to airports and seaports promotes business and tourism in the regions.
“We have a thick portfolio of transport infrastructure projects that inherently contain multi-layered social components. Wherever we build railway systems, bike lanes, expressways or airports and seaports, local communities benefit from long-term job opportunities, increased economic activity, even significant rise in real estate levels,” Bautista said.
“The ripple effect of workers hired from communities located at and around project sites spills over to local markets, schools, hospitals – cascading the benefits to families and the local government,” he added.
The National Economic Development Authority earlier approved a total of 197 infrastructure flagship projects or IFPs which have a cumulative cost of more than P8 trillion.
Of the 197 IFPs, 73 are being undertaken by DOTr. In terms of total project cost, these DOTr projects are valued at P4.775 billion.
“Today, we handle more than 160, inclusive of the 73 IFPs, across the project development lifecycle. There are around 28 projects under the aviation sector, 26 under maritime, 59 under railways and 47 under the road sector,” Bautista said.
The transport chief also said that the agency is pushing for non-specific thematic initiatives that are all-encompassing across the different sectors. Included in the existing 20 thematic initiatives are reducing logistics cost, create transport jobs, transport safety and security, carbon neutrality, disaster resilience, gender equality, disability and social inclusion, among others.
“Other critical initiatives that we now regard as advocacies are digitalization, electric vehicles, institutional strengthening & rightsizing, and more,” Bautista said.
“If transport bottlenecks and related issues are effectively addressed, we can only imagine the velocity of the country’s economic trajectory,” he added.
According to a study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency or JICA, the economic impact of road traffic was pegged at P3.5 billion a day for Metro Manila and P2.4 billion for surrounding provinces such as Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna and Cavite in 2017.
The study further showed that the total annual direct economic cost of traffic congestion stands at more than P1.277 trillion. This staggering amount of lost economic opportunities is pushing us to accelerate the completion of our projects, not just those that address road traffic.
Bautista said the bulk or 79.5 percent of DOTr’s P214.3 billion budget for 2024 was for capital outlay, mainly for the big-ticket projects. Almost 100 percent of the budget are new appropriations.
“We want to bridge the gap towards our vision for the transport sector across our 4 operating sectors—Aviation, Maritime, Railways, and Road—through infrastructures projects that are designed to improve mobility and connectivity,” he said.