New projects raise completion risk
COMPLETION of the government’s infrastructure program has become uncertain and could threaten the country’s growth momentum, research firm GlobalSource Partners Inc. said.
GlobalSource country analysts Diwa Guingundo and Wilhelmina Manalac, in a report issued on Monday, said that new projects approved earlier this month “could simply lengthen the list of deliverables.” They noted that the list of projects under the Marcos administration’s “Build Better More” program had been cut from 194 to 185 earlier this year and that Socioeconomic
Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan had said that the move would ensure “implementation of as many important projects of high significance as possible.”
Guinigundo and Manalac, however, said “the issue here, of course, is that it takes years for new projects to be put on stream.
They pointed out that in May, the government had approved the P2.75-billion Facility for Accelerating Studies for Infrastructure project, aimed at developing a transportation infrastructure program, and the P30.56-billion Infrastructure for Safer and Resilient Schools initiative.
Extensions, meanwhile, were greenlit for a P24.62-billion Support for Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling project, aimed at strengthening the rights of agrarian reform beneficiaries, and the P8.41-billion LRT Line East Extension project.
Guinigundo and Manalac noted that just one of the 13 projects aimed at establishing physical and digital connectivity, health and water had been completed as of last year, with the rest expected to be finished in 2024.
“With the new projects, and many others still to be completed, the list of flagship projects continues to lengthen; the likelihood of everything being completed becomes uncertain,” the said.
“Sound infrastructure is one big challenged to the Philippines’ bid for high and sustainable economic growth,” they added.
“Unless the issue of infrastructure is decisively and quickly addressed, it may instead drag the momentum of growth down.”
Philippine economic growth slowed to 5.6 percent last year, markedly lower than the 7.6 percent posted a year earlier and well short of the 6.0- to 7.0-percent target, as inflation and interest rate hikes dampened consumption.
Growth in the first three months of 2024 was also lower than expected at 5.7 percent and missed the full-year goal of 6.07.0 percent.