PANEL 2: COMPETITIVE RAIL AND HIGHWAY NETWORKS

Transcription

1 SEVENTH ARANGKADA PHILIPPINES ANNIVERSARY FORUM ARANGKADA PHILIPPINES: BETTER INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A STRONG ECONOMY September 12, 2018 Marriott Grand Ballroom, Marriott Hotel Manila PANEL 2: COMPETITIVE RAIL AND HIGHWAY NETWORKS PRESENTATION OF GUEST SPEAKER Hon. Maria Catalina E. Cabral Undersecretary for Planning and PPP, Department of Public Works and Highways Good morning. I am Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). I am in charge of the planning and public-private partnership of DPWH. I am here to present to you the program of DPWH, providing connectivity to increase competitiveness as we work for a better infrastructure for a strong economy. Let me start with the basic DPWH mandate. The DPWH is mandated to undertake (a) the planning of infrastructure, and (b) design, construction and maintenance of national roads and bridges, major flood control, water resources projects, and other infrastructure. The length of the national roads of the county is around 32,868 km, which is roughly less than 15% of the Philippine entire road network. We have around 8,260 bridges with a total length of 367,864 m. As of December 2017, the condition of the Philippine road network is shown in the screen. I mentioned that the national road totals around 32,868 km in length, roughly 95% of which are paved. Our national road is actually divided into three class or category. We have the primary road mainly the North-South backbone and the East-West lateral then we have the secondary road, and the tertiary road. As I said, 95% of the national road network have been paved, but the bulk of the Philippine road network are local roads. They are classified into provincial road, municipal road, city road, and the bulk are the barangay roads or what we popularly know as the farm to market roads. The percentage paved or the paved road ratio is quite low along the local roads. As of December 2017, the percentage paved length of local roads in the country is only around 18 to 19% of the entire 177,595 km of local road. On the national bridges, we have 8,260, but many of these, about 99% of these are permanent bridges. These are the ones along the national road. 1

2 In DPWH, we have our own performance governance system strategy map and we have updated our score card in line with our commitment anchored on the Philippine Development Plan and the AmbisyonNatin 2040, which is our contribution to the betterment of the life of the Filipino family. The branding of DPWH is captured in our Konkreto 2022, which set out three major outcomes that shall be our contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals intended to improve the life of every Filipino that is (1) reduction of travel time, (2) improving the quality of the roads especially on safety, and (3) protecting the lives and properties because of natural disasters. In the last World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report, our ranking remains the same. Out of 137 countries, we were ranked 104 from the last rating of the Global Competitiveness Report. This is just an upgrade from the last ranking we had in 2016 to 2017 where we were ranked at 106 out of 138 countries. The index ranking at 3.1 remains the same for the two ranking period. If you go by 1 (extremely underdeveloped) to 7 (extensive and efficient by international standards), the ranking of the Philippines at 3.1 remains to be challenging and much needs to be done. DPWH remains to be the biggest infrastructure agency of government. This year, 2018, for the first time in the history of government, DPWH received the biggest budget among all national government agency; even bigger than the Department of Education. Education remains to be a priority of government and that is why, in 2019, DPWH will received the second highest budget after the Department of Education (DepEd). The budget of DPWH, which has received significant increases over the last seven years. From 2017 to 2018, we received an increase of about 43% from what we got in Mainly, we are implementing highway projects, flood control, and other infrastructure like school buildings from the DepEd and farm to market roads from the budget of the Department of Agriculture. Let me cite to you, the various programs of DPWH to better increase competitiveness by providing connectivity. First, we have our Convergence and Rural Road Development Program, where we aim to construct and build local access roads to designated tourism destinations based on the master plan of the Department of Tourism (DOT) or their National Tourism Development Plan. Here, we identify, together with DOT, various local roads. We also are improving access to Ro-Ro ports, seaports, and airports that are being built by the Department of Transportation. Together with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), under our ROLL IT Program or Roads Leveraging Linkage for Industry and Trade, we identified roads, local roads leading to economic zones, industrial trade corridors, manufacturing areas, to support the logistics, especially those that would create jobs and opportunities because this is where the industries are. Let me highlight the program by saying that the local access roads that we identified under this were cut out from the plan of DTI, based on their priority industry and services. Let me mention some of these industries and services that are priorities of DTI. For example, automotive and auto parts, aerospace parts, chemicals, shipbuilding, 2

3 furniture and garments, tools and dye, BPO, transport and logistics, construction sites, and tourism destinations. This priority industries remain to be our focal priority locations or hubs where we identified so that it will further fuel high growth of domestic investment. We want to build better access towards these industries. By providing better infrastructure, we will be able to create more industries outside the urban areas, creating more jobs and income opportunities to more Filipinos. A total of 2,790 km of roads were identified under this program. As of 2018, we were able to appropriate around PhP 12.5 billion for this program alone with the intention of constructing and upgrading around 438 km of access roads leading to economic zones, industries and trade, and manufacturing sites. Under the Tourism Road Infrastructure Program, we partnered with DOT. We started this since 2012 where based on their National Tourism Development Plan, we crafted a framework defining the logical and spatial framework to link tourism gateways. This is aligned with the strategic direction of DOT to provide access and connectivity to tourism gateways, service centers, and tourism sites. From 2016 to 2018, we allocated PhP 66 billion to build, rehabilitate, and upgrade around 2,700 km of local roads leading to tourism destinations. This will continue as a priority program of DPWH. We are also aiming to build livable, sustainable, and resilient communities, but let me highlight those that are contributing to connectivity, mainly, our program to rehabilitate, retrofit, strengthen existing bridges; providing access to highly vulnerable areas. As we speak, government and DPWH in particular, are prepositioning our equipment and in preparation for the projected coming of the strong Typhoon Ompong. We want to improve the roads, especially those that are vulnerable to flooding, landslide, and slope failure. We are also building evacuation centers. On top of that, we are also supporting facilities for marginalized sectors such as senior citizens, the physically challenged persons, and also catering to the women sector. We want to build more bike lanes. We are incorporating bike lanes/facilities and pedestrian infrastructure into our new road construction. In addition to the existing 30 bridges in Metro Manila that are crossing Pasig River, Marikina River, and Manggahan Floodway, we are also going to rehabilitate and strengthen three existing bridges on top of building 12 new bridges. Let me mention to you some of the new bridges that are going to be built under the Metro Manila Logistics Improvement Program. For example, we are starting construction this year of two bridges: one in Manila connecting Binondo and Intramuros Bridge and the other one in Makati connecting Mandaluyong, Estrella Pantaleon Bridge. We started constructing this year, Sta. Monica Lawton Bridge crossing Makati and Pasig. Next year, we are going to start rehabilitating two important bridges: Gaudalupe Bridge in EDSA and Lambingan Bridge in Sta. Ana, Manila. These bridges are old bridges. These are more than 50 years old. These are due for rehabilitation and strengthening. 3

4 We are coordinating with local government units, particularly those that are traversing EDSA and with the Metro Manila Development Authority, for the traffic management plan because even without any ongoing construction along EDSA it is already creating traffic. We are making sure that we will maintain the same number of lanes open at any time during the rehabilitation of Guadalupe Bridge in EDSA. We are incorporating bike facilities, especially with our construction of our new road projects. Let me mention to you some of these projects: we are including bike lanes in Laguna Lake Highway; in Bacolod-Negros Occidental Economic Highway with a two lane bike lane, meaning both lanes; and in Davao City Coastal Road Project. These flagship projects have considered, in the design and budget, the construction of bike facilities to encourage use of non-motorized vehicles. In our Traffic Decongestion Program, we are implementing based on master plans and are going to construct high standard highways and expressways, widen of existing national roads and bridges, and recover our right-of-way. Remember R-10? We were able to recover the R-10 from a lot of informal sectors and obstructions. We intend to recover existing right-of-way by strictly enforcing the law together with the local police and MMDA. We are also building by-passes and diversion roads in congested areas where widening is no longer possible because it is more expensive to pay for acquiring the right-of-way, demolishing existing structures, rather than building along new alignments. We are also building flyovers in urban centers, interchanges, and underpasses. We have our High Standard Highway Network Master Plan, currently being updated with the assistance from JICA. The government will continue to implement the master plan on High Standard Highway Network Development Program, which we originally formulated back in July 2010 with the aim of decongesting traffic, especially in urban areas and highly travelled corridors. Of course, expanding the expressway network will definitely hasten economic development because we are avoiding overconcentration of the socio-economic activities in Metro Manila and other urban areas to eventually diminish the economic disparity across the country if we want to improve and develop regional economy. We have the Philippine High Standard Highway Network. Under this Network, we have identified three priority highway networks: In Luzon, we have the Luzon Spine Expressway Network with a total length of 884 km and a project cost of PhP 424 billion In Visayas, we have the Cebu High Standard Highway Network with a total length of 73 km and a project cost of PhP 28 billion In Mindanao, we have the Davao High Standard Highway Network with a total length of 86 km and a project cost of PhP 65 billion 4

5 Let me show you a little bit more detail on these three High Standard Expressway Network. Luzon Spine Expressway Network is our flagship project, which aims to reduce travel time from IIocos Region in the north to Bicol Region in the south from your usual 20 hours travel time to just about 8 hours and 15 mins. How can we do that? We have several expressways ongoing and we have identified those that will ensure connectivity from Ilocos to Bicol. The last bastion is the Quezon-Bicol Expressway, which is undergoing a feasibility study by the DPWH. Many of these will be finished by Let me cite to you some projects: (1) Skyway will be finished next year, we have the connector. We are extending the (2) NAIA Expressway towards the Bonifacio Global City. (3) Cavite-Laguna Expressway is going to be finished on or before We have just awarded an original proponent status for the (4) Cavite-Tagaytay-Batangas Expressway. We are starting to acquire the right-of-way for the (5) Toll Road Four, which is the extension of the South Luzon Expressway. We are reviewing the extension of (6) TPLEX, which the original section will be finished by next year and there is a proposal to extend this to San Juan, La Union and probably towards Ilocos. With our Integrated and Seamless Transport System, we are focusing particularly on supporting Mindanao by way of Mindanao Infrastructure Logistic Network and building roads linking the growth corridors in Western Mindanao and building inter-island linkage projects. We have identified the projects that would fall under this program. For example, under the Mindanao Road Development Network Program, 2,600 km of road network in Zamboanga Peninsula have been identified for construction and improvement and growth corridors in Zamboanga Peninsula are being supported by the Asian Development Bank under their program of improving growth corridors in Mindanao road sector. These have started and planned to be finished by We are also supporting ARMM, the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao, by developing and upgrading primary access roads that will connect the ARMM to the other regions in Mindanao, supporting the development objectives, especially in conflict affected areas. This program consists of about 150 km of road network comprising of six major roads and missing links and construction of 40 bridges along this road. With a project cost of PhP 24 billion, we are being supported by JICA to finish the feasibility study so that we can submit this to NEDA, if not latter part of this year, early part of next year. I mentioned to you our Inter-Island Linkage/Mega Bridge Program, which comprises of several bridge projects that aims to connect the islands of the country. We are an archipelago. We want to connect the major islands by building a series of short- and long-span bridges. For example, ongoing is the Pangil Bay Bridge in Mindanao connecting Misamis Occidental and Lanaodel Norte. This is supported by the Korean government through KDCF and this has a length of 3.7 km that will cover deep bodies of water. Under the Mega-Bridge Program, we also finished the feasibility study for Panay-Guimaras- Negros Bridge, a 19-km bridge that will connect the three islands of Panay, which are major tourism destinations. Panay with Boracay and Iloilo, Guimaras with the sweetest mango, and Negros, which is 5

6 the sugar capital of the Philippines. Davao-Samal Bridge that will connect Davao to the Island Garden City of Samal in Mindanao is a 4.4 km bridge. The feasibility studies also finished. We are seeking foreign expertise to design and help us build these bridges. Other bridges in the pipeline includes Bataan-Cavite Link Bridge, Luzon-Samar Link Bridge, the fourth Mandaue-Mactan Bridge, Cebu-Bohol Link Bridge, Leyte-Surigao Link Bridge, Negros-Cebu Bridge, and three bridges in Tawi-Tawi. Those are in the priority plan and program of DPWH. DPWH is finishing many of these projects by 2022, some of them will spill over because they are still in the feasibility study stage. We hope that with providing connectivity, transport cost will be reduced. Thereby, improving the economic life of every Filipino. With that, thank you on behalf of DPWH. 6