The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has lined up more than a dozen major infrastructure projects in the next four years with a budget requirement of over $5.5 billion, according to a DPWH report furnished the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
At least five of the public-private partnership, or PPP, projects are “ready for roll-out in 2012 and 2013,” the report said.
The projects are the 7.15-kilometer Ninoy Aquino International Airport Expressway, 13.4-km North Luzon Expressway-South Luzon Expressway (NLEx-SLEx) Connector elevated Expressway, Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3, 36-km Cavite-Laguna Expressway and Phase 2 of the Southern Tagalog Arterial Road.
Other PPP projects include the C-6 Expressway and Global Link; C-6 Extension; Kennon Road and Marcos Highway improvement; rehabilitation of Quirino Highway traversing Quezon, Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur; Calamba-Los Baños Toll Expressway; R-7 Expressway, and the NLEx East Expressway in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija.
Under the PPP Bridges Project, the department “will implement a pilot test in Luzon, where 139 bridges will be replaced by new ones,” the report said. “By tapping private sector resources and skills in the design and construction of various types of bridges, the project is expected to improve and provide direct access to and between outlying barangays, municipalities and cities, thereby facilitating the transport of goods and services.”
Later this year, the DPWH also plans to start constructing an additional 9,630 classrooms nationwide to fill up the 60,000-classroom backlog of the Department of Education (DepEd).
Under the $233.5-million project, the contractor will “undertake the financing, design and construction of a package of classrooms. After completion, the contractor will turn them over to the DepEd, which shall pay the contractor or the project financier their total investments plus a reasonable rate of return on an agreed schedule.”
The DPWH said the Tarlac-Rosales, Pangasinan, segment or Phase 1 of another PPP project, the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Toll Expressway (TPLEx), is 84.8 percent complete. It is expected to be completed by May 2013.
The 88.6-km and two-lane TPLEx, which costs $269.5 million, also covers two viaducts, eight interchanges, two central toll plazas, 12 bridges and 63 underpasses.
Another PPP project, the construction of the 4-km Daang-Hari-SLEx Link, is scheduled to start later this year. The toll road will pass through the New Bilibid Prison reservation, connecting Bacoor-Cavite with the South Luzon Expressway through Susana Heights. The project costs $45.6 million, P338.4 million of which will be the government’s counterpart fund.
Of the total public investment requirement of P698 billion, at least P586 billion is earmarked for the highways sector, said the DPWH.
By 2014, the agency aims to pave all existing unpaved roads out of the 15,872 km of national arterial roads, and by 2016, pave all existing unpaved roads out of the 15,370 km of national secondary roads.
By the same year, the DPWH also targets the rehabilitation of 58,592 meters of national bridges, widening of 12,236 m of existing bridges, construction of 18,255 m of new bridges and replacement of 19,725 m of damaged bridges.