ICC-CabCom okays 12 projects

A section of the soon-to-be-completed Harbor Link connecting Karuhatan in Valenzuela City to C3 in Caloocan City, an elevated roadway designed to speed up the transport of goods and people to Manila’s port area. roman prospero @tribunephl_RRP

The government’s infrastructure buildup program expanded some more on Friday as the Investment Coordination Committee-Cabinet Committee (ICC-CC) approved 12 projects to the list of commitments.

According to Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) president and chief executive officer Vivencio Dizon enumerated the projects that have been greenlighted.

This relates to the unsolicited proposal for the augmentation and expansion of the Laguindingan Airport in Misamis Oriental, the development, operation and management of the Davao International airport, the MRT-4 project which will be funded by a loan from the Asian Development Bank, the EDSA Elevated Greenways Project which will also be funded by the ADB and the Maritime Safety Enhancement Program under the Philippine Coast guard under the DoTr (Department of Transportation),” Dizon said.

“(Also) 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 official development assistance (ODA) from China, 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 program but nonetheless a major project, connecting Tarlac to Zambales,” Dizon added.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the approved projects costing more or less P626.11 billion, could help jumpstart the buildup program of 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. When you do a project, you have to do all the studies before that. We are now completing these studies and we will start as many as possible,” Dominguez said.

Public works chief Villar vowed to fast track the implementation of the projects even during the holidays.

He anticipates the release of the funds for the projects by early next year which will give the agency significant lead tome to complete them.