NLEE construction eyed in 2019 – Villar

By Franco Regala

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga — Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Mark Villar is optimistic that the construction of the North-East Luzon Expressway (NELEX) can be started by 2019.

“We’ll finish the feasibility study this year and construction to start (hopefully) next year,” the secretary said in a recent interview.

He said that once NLEE is completed, portions of Maharlika Highway in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija will decongest. “It will also serve as fast alternative route for those vehicles bound for Cagayan Valley region. This will be connected to the Central Luzon Link Expressway,” Villar added.

NLEE is a 92.1-kilometer toll road that will start in Quezon City will traverse San Jose Del Monte City, Santa Maria, Norzagaray, Angat, San Ildefonso, and San Miguel in Bulacan as well as Gapan, Santa Rosa, and Cabanatuan City in Nueva Ecija.

https://news.mb.com.ph/2018/08/23/nelex-construction-eyed-in-2019-villar/

We complicate things

An accomplished businessman wrote me to say we are needlessly complicating solutions to our problems:

“Inflation is going to eat into consumption unless we build infrastructure to bring in tourists.


“Build Build Build is being oversold. I guess that is the common thread of all administrations. Over promise and under deliver. Without doubt they should be managing expectations. But they should not have created them to start with... but more importantly… they need to focus on only two things:

“Infra for Manila traffic… elevated connector roads. Help Ramón Ang and MVP get the right of way. NLEX-SLEX connector, C6… etc;

“Infra for tourism. The southern airports; Clark and a new Manila airport. That is all the time they have.


“And how to finance it? First priority privatize… second, sell all the assets they have… SMC. Cocobank. All of NPC. etc..  They pride themselves in dividends… CAAP and PPA paying dividends… Mama mia. That is terrible. They should be building ports… Davao, Cebu, Manila all congested…

“Just look what happened when something was done…

“There were tons of traffic to MOA and the airport… San Miguel builds one measly NAIA expressway and the traffic disappeared… We do not have too many cars. We have too few roads… Two connector roads and C6 and you will see the change.”

I share his view. The bane of our existence as a nation is our propensity to complicate the simple. It is probably due to the number of surplus lawyers, specially in government, trying to make themselves appear useful.

It is also because of corruption endemic in our system. Officials and bureaucrats make things complicated because it is not easy to make illicit money when things or processes are simplified.

That was why I thought Duterte was different. He has this record of simplifying things in Davao City Hall. I was hoping he can do the same thing at the national level.

But the last two years showed the system is too entrenched for reform. Not even the much claimed political will of Duterte made a difference. Maybe he was too focused on drugs he didn’t try hard enough on other things.

Anyway, we need public officials who can reduce problems to simple terms. The previous and the current administrations failed to produce persons like that to head DOTr and DPWH.

The problems at NAIA are not new. It has a single international runway and has long exceeded the number of passengers it is rated to handle. Flights in and out are delayed costing airlines and passengers billions of pesos in losses. There is no room for a second parallel runway unless government has the political will to expropriate subdivisions in its periphery.

There is Clark, but too cumbersome for Metro Manila passengers. EDSA traffic makes the trip to the business center too punishing. There is talk of a fast train connection. But even then, Tugade talks of the service up to Tutuban only and not a fast train.

In the meantime, there are a number of unsolicited proposals to build a brand new international airport from scratch. The most advanced of these proposals is from San Miguel… no subsidy, no guarantee from government, all private risk.

It had been approved by the NEDA board in a meeting presided by President Duterte last April 26. It is a simple solution to the NAIA situation, but it is not moving.

That unfortunate accident at NAIA last week has exasperated people enough to ask in social media: what is keeping San Miguel from starting to build their dream airport? NEDA-ICC and DOF.

Apparently, the NEDA Board approved the project for Swiss challenge subject to final negotiations on the concession agreement.

NEDA-ICC and DOF were supposed to consolidate all comments of government agencies and then pass these on to DOTr for use as guidelines when it sits down with San Miguel for the final terms before Swiss challenge. DOTr had been waiting for NEDA-ICC and DOF to send those comments, but have received nothing over the last four months.

Under BOT rules, negotiation on the concession agreement must be concluded in 80 days after a notice of negotiation is issued by DOTr. We are not even there yet. Maybe middle of next year is being optimistic for construction to start.

Grapevine tells me DOF is sitting on it, worried that the project is too big to fail. Even if no explicit or implied government guarantees are involved, DOF is concerned about the health of the banks lending to San Miguel if the project fails. But banks are big boys and San Miguel’s lenders are international banks.

The NAIA modernization proposal of the Taipan consortium should also move fast because like the San Miguel airport, it also has original proponent status and urgently needed. But our bureaucracy has no sense of urgency. They love studying proposals to death.

 Sayang. The San Miguel airport proposal is urgently needed and is totally private risk. San Miguel is ready to operate the Bulacan airport without asking government to shut down NAIA.

 SMC’s proposed airport will be built on a 2,500-hectare property with up to six runways. It will be able to handle more than 100 million passengers a year.

As a bonus, the airport project will help address Bulacan’s perennial flooding problem by building a spillway to discharge excess water from denuded watersheds directly to Manila Bay. 

Our problems are simple and so are the solutions. Our bureaucrats just insist on complicating things.

Enough of that now. We have no time to waste, not with a fast growing population that is sinking deeper into poverty unless we grow a lot faster.

Jelly fish

The fact that jellyfish has survived 650 million years without brains gives hope to many people.

(Not sure how true. And I am not necessarily thinking of our bureaucrats.)

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco

https://www.philstar.com/business/2018/08/24/1845198/we-complicate-things

PHL, China accelerating implementation of infra projects

BEIJING—Manila and Beijing have affirmed their commitment to speed up the preparation and processes needed to ensure the timely implementation of the Duterte administration’s flagship infrastructure projects with financial support from China.

In a meeting here with the People’s Republic of China’s State Councilor and Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi Wednesday night (Aug. 22), Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said the preparation for the projects to be implemented by the Philippines in cooperation with China “have already been moving quite fast ahead,” particularly the South Long Haul Manila-Bicol Railway and the Clark-Subic Railway projects.

“Under the guidance of President Duterte, we have been working very hard to achieve both the goals of President Duterte and President Xi Jinping in the development of the relationship between China and the Philippines,” Dominguez said during the meeting.

Minister Wang, for his part, said that “what is needed now (are) specific and concrete actions to move forward (our) practical cooperation across the board.”

“What I hope you and our other friends sitting here today will do is to have more communication with your counterparts so that jointly, we can fully tap the potential of our cooperation,” Minister Wang said.

Also at the meeting were the other members of the Philippine delegation, including Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, Philippine Ambassador to China Jose Santiago Sta. Romana, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade; Vivencio Dizon, president-CEO of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA); and other senior government officials.

Minister Wang said bilateral relations between the Philippines and China have vastly improved and “entered a fast track of development under the guidance of President Duterte and President Xi.”

“There are many works of cooperation to be advanced. I hope and I believe, through your current visit, we will reach even more consensus and cooperation between our two countries to deliver even greater benefits to the Chinese and Filipino people and make our respective contributions to regional peace and stability,” Minister Wang said.

Dominguez, for his part, said that since President Duterte assumed office, “the relationship (between the two countries) has become very close.”

He informed Minister Wang that the Philippines has “received a lot of investments from your country as well as tourists have been coming in (from China).”

Minister Wang informed Dominguez and the rest of the Philippine delegation that he and his counterpart, Secretary Cayetano “and our two foreign ministries will coordinate with other respective departments to do as much as we can to foster a sound condition (and) atmosphere for the economic cooperation between our two countries.”

The warm relations between the two countries since President Duterte assumed office in 2016 has led to rising Chinese investments in the Philippines.

Net foreign direct investment (FDI) from China for the period January-May 2018 registered a 534 percent increase over the net FDI from that country for the whole 2017. Total approved investments from China, meanwhile, grew by 57.14 percent over the previous year.

Bilateral trade with China has also increased since 2017, with total trade between the two countries reaching $13.9 billion in the first half of 2018.

The number of Chinese tourists entering the Philippines hit almost one million in 2017. The Philippines’ target for 2018 is to bring in 1.5 million tourists from China.