The Duterte administration’s thrust to improve the infrastructure landscape in the Philippines moves at a faster pace as members of the Investment Coordination Committee-Cabinet Committee (ICC-CC) approved 12 projects on Friday.

Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) president Vince Dizon said that the listed projects were included in the recent approval.

“The first one is the proposal for the operate and transfer of the Davao International airport, the unsolicited proposal for the operate and transfer of the Laguindingan airport, the MRT-4 project which will be funded through a loan from the ADB (Asian Development Bank), the EDSA greenways project which will also be funded through ADB, the maritime safety enhancement program under the Philippine Coast guard under the DoTr (Department of Transportation),” Dizon said.

“(Also, we have) the Bataan-Cavite interlink bridge, the Cebu-Mactan bridge…the Davao City Coastal bypass road including the Bucana bridge project…the Panay-Guimaras-Negros island bridge, also to be funded by China under ODA (official development assistance), the Davao City bypass construction project…the Samar Pacific coastal road project (and) the Capas-Botolan road which is not a part of the flagship list but it is a major project, connecting Tarlac to Zambales,” he added.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, on the other hand, said that the greenlighted projects — which amounts to P626.11 billion — will serve as a headstart for the next administration.

“Secretary Mark Villar was just mentioning that when we took over in 2016, the pipeline was less than P50 billion, right now we encompassed P1 trillion in projects and still counting. So you know, when you do a project, you have to do all the studies before that, so we are now completing these studies and… we will start as many as possible,” Dominguez said.

“It will be ready for just to be picked up the next administration so we are presenting the Filipino nation with a robust pipeline,” he added.

Villar, meantime, said that they will fast track the implementation of these projects while they work on the timeline for such during the holidays.

“After passing the (ICC-CC), (we can expect the) release (of these) projects by early next year, allowing us significant time within the Duterte administration to significantly complete these game-changing projects,” Villar said.

“It’s crucial that we start these projects…that’s why we fast track all these projects before the end of the year so that next year, we can focus purely on the detailed engineering and procurement of these big-ticket projects,” he added.

According to him, such projects are “good to go” with its implementation to be expected “sooner than later.”

Tags: Duterte, Dominguez, Villar, Dizon, infrastructure, Finance, DPWH, BCDA