Book details innovations, reforms under Build, Build, Build program

By: Dennis Gutierrez - 3 years ago

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte with Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo in Malacanang

MANILA, Philippines — Former Build, Build, Build committee chair Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo has recently come up with a book that detailed the challenges they have faced and innovations they used while undertaking the Duterte administration’s ambitious infrastructure program.

Lamentillio’s book titled Night Owl, named after her column in the Manila Bulletin, detailed how they applied new solutions to address the old problems that beset the government’s infrastructure programs.

“This is a first hand narrative of the Build Build Build program which is a medium term development strategy of the government to usher in the golden age of infrastructure,” explained Lamentillo.

“It explains the reforms. We had problems with ghost projects. How did we eliminate ghost projects? We adopted drone monitoring and adopted sattelite technology. So ngayon bago magsimula yung project, we already plot the geographic coordinates of the project.”

Lamentillo said the drones allowed the Department of Public works and Highweays to plot the geographic coordinate of a project even before they award a project to a contractor.

“The contractor has to submit geotagged photos. If the geotagged photos did not match the coordinates of the system, automatically mafaflag sila ng system saying this is a possible ghost project,” she said.

“Even if you are in Manila you will see projects in Mindanao. Readilly available yung photos if you want to see Cagayan de Oro Expressway or Sorsogon Coastal expressway. We knew that old solutions can not address these problems. We had to create new innovations while moving forward.”

The book also covered bulk of the administration’s Build, Build, Build program, including 29,264 kilometers of roads, 5,950 bridges, 11,340 flood mitigation structures, 222 evacuation centers, 150,149 classrooms, 214 airport projects, and 451 seaport projects built over the past five years.

“There are a lot of projects that were accomplished within the administration. That are started and completed under this administration,” she said. “For example the BGC-Ortigas link bridge. We also have the Binondo-Intramuros bridge, the Estrella Pantaleon Bridge which are all part of the instant decongestion program.

But of course, ‘yung scale of these projects is not as big as when we talk about th Cebu-Cordova Expressway, or the Panay-Guimaras-Negros Bridge.”

Night Owl also discussed the program’s master plans and projects to be completed after the Duterte administration.

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte reading “Night Owl” written by Build, Build, Build committee chair Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo

“These are master plans we cannot fully accomplish 100% under the term of the president, it requires more years,” said Lamentillo.

“For example, the Luzon Spine Expressway network. What we want is to increase the high standard highway by three-fold, from 385 kilometers, we want to increase it by 1000 kilometers and reduce travel time by 50%.”

This, she said, will cut travel time from Bicol to Ilocos from 16 hours down to 8 hours.

“Partially we are able to experience the benefits of the Luzon Spine kasi ‘yung dating Manila to Baguio na limang oras, ngayon three hours na lang.

‘Yung La Union na dating limang oras, ngayon 3.5 hours na lang.

Pangasinan is already two hours away from Metro Manila. These are some of the benefits we are reaping now,” she said.

“We talked about the Metro Manila subway, we talked about projects that the Philippines can expect in the future.

We also talked about projects in the different regions to counter the issue that all projects in Metro Manila. In fact, each province has a big ticket project. So that’s we were adamant to ensure,” Lamentillo added.

Prior to becoming the Build, Build, Build committee chair, Lamentillo worked as a communications consultant at the United Nations Food and agriculture Organization and UN Development Programme.

She graduated cum laude at the University of the Philippines Los Baños with a degree of Development Communications and took up her Juris Doctor program at the UP College of Law. She also secured her Executive Education in Economic Development in Harvard Kennedy School.