President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. ordered newly appointed Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon to promptly address the daily plight of commuters by expediting the transport system infrastructure projects in the country. 

Dizon, who was a former chief of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), said he was ordered to particularly resolve the hounding issues on transportation systems such as physical connectivity and shortening travel time of commuters. 

“That was the first thing our President said, we have to fast-track all the ongoing projects of the past administration,” Dizon told reporters in a press conference on Friday.

Dizon said he was also instructed to start the projects that were already in the pipeline. 

“We need to speed things up not just because we want to finish them, but because we know that by accelerating these projects, we can somewhat ease the hardships of our countrymen — that’s the purpose. That’s the purpose of the Department of Transportation, to make all of that happen, and that’s the instruction of our beloved President” he added.

He vowed to continue prioritizing the public transportation system. 

“This is one of the most critical sectors since it transports workers from their homes to their places of work, their children to school, and families to the malls and other places,” he said. 

Dizon lamented some people are traveling two to three hours each day before reaching their places of work and another two to three hours back to their homes “due to traffic and an inefficient system.”

Further, Dizon also noted the need to address right-of-way issues in the Department of Transportation by engaging in “whole-of-government" and “whole-of-society" approaches among local government units, local officials, and the private sector.