The Philippines will have to find other funding sources to bankroll big-ticket transport infrastructure projects after the Department of Transportation or DoTr decided to drop China as its partner for the Mindanao Railway Project.

Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista on Thursday confirmed the DoTr is currently "looking for other lending sources."

"We will look for another funding source. We are working on that now," Bautista said on the sidelines of the German–Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry luncheon meeting.

The transport chief said three DoTr projects – the South Long Haul Project, Mindanao Railway Project, and Subic-Clark Railway—were dropped as Chinese Official Development Assistance projects or ODA as the latter's interest had "waned."

"Those are what we are going to look for additional funding or replacement for," he said in English and Filipino, adding that the DoTr has requested assistance from the Department of Finance.

Bautista said he was unfazed as other funding sources are available, including the Japan International Cooperation Agency or JICA, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank.

"Our options are we can still go for other ODA. There's the JICA, the ADB, the World Bank," he said.

"There are other governments talking to us on the possibility of financing these projects," he added.