Gov’t bonds eyed to fund water projects

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand ” Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. on Tuesday ordered the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to study the viability of government bonds to fund water projects.

During a Palace briefing, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Undersecretary Carlos David said that government bonds could be a source of funding aside from public–private partnerships.

“Government bonds are meant to fund government projects, priority projects and this is another possible source of funding other than of course obviously  our GAA (General Appropriations Act). And so, the directive of the president is to start studying, ask help from our development partners World Bank, ADB (Asian Development Bank) and so on, to implement this,” David said in English and Filipino.

Marcos was informed during the meeting with DENR that there are 40 million Filipinos who do not hav access to formal water sources.

According to David, Marcos said that such a figure was unacceptable.

The President has ordered the DENR and other agencies to focus on serving the 40 million.