Public Works Secretary Mark Villar on Wednesday said that the government had achieved “significant progress” in dealing with right of way problems, especially in big-ticket projects, since the Duterte administration came to office.
Villar said in a statement that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) had been able to “expedite the acquisition process” since he issued Department Order No. 65, which created a right of way task force, in May last year.
With the task force working, the DPWH managed to settle within a year and seven months all right of way issues in the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) Harbor Link Segment 10 project, which had been stalled for over three decades, he added.
Passable this month
It acquired 100-percent possession of the project site in December last year, Villar said.
“We are happy to announce that the NLEx Harbor Link Project will be accessible to the public by January. When this is completed, travel time from C3 in Caloocan and NLEx will be reduced to 10 minutes,” he said.
The project consists of a 5.65-kilometer elevated expressway that stretches over NLEx from MacArthur Highway in Karuhatan, Valenzuela City, cuts through Malabon City and passes over C3 Road in Caloocan City, and the 2.6-km section between C3 Road and R10 in Navotas City.
“The next phase will connect it to R10 and reduce travel time from Port Area in Manila to Quezon City to approximately 10 minutes,” Villar said.
Decentralization
The DPWH is now concreting the additional 600-meter segment that would make 2.7 km of Mindanao Avenue Extension passable within the first quarter of this year.
“The project was started in the 1980s but was stopped for decades due to right of way issues. We are happy that it was during the term of President Duterte that we are able to deliver the project,” Villar said.
DO 65 helped to “decentralize and rationalize” DPWH processes, according to Abdul Halim Diron, chief of the agency’s Right-of-Way Acquisition and Enforcement Division.
“This time, instead of just the secretary, certain acts can already be performed by the regional directors and directors in the central office. If it’s a [regional] project, the regional director can already validate and approve transactions. So that helps hasten the acquisition,” Diron said in an interview on Wednesday.
The order, he said, also cleared the way for the DPWH to improve its legal processes, with each regional office now having a legal division that deals with right of way matters.
If before there was only one lawyer handling a problem in an area, now there are at least five, he added.
The announcement of improvements came amid reports of projects being delayed because of unresolved right of way issues.
Diron attributed the delay in right of way payments to due diligence.
‘Improper payment’
The DPWH does not want “improper payment” to be made to landowners, he said.
Diron explained that in due diligence, certain problems may arise and cause delay in the release of payments, such as a landowner’s failure to submit proper documents or the requirement for the DPWH to prove that private property will indeed be affected by the project.
“You have to understand that this is taxpayer money that we are using and we have to comply with Commission on Audit (COA) rules on payments. Our process here, as well as in [the] COA, is really document-based. It relies so much on official records that it could take a while to obtain them,” Diron said.
Earlier this week, some 180 residents of Sariaya, Quezon province, reported that they had yet to be compensated for their properties that were affected by the construction of a 7.2-km, P467-million bypass whose development began three years ago.
The local public works office said some of the landowners had failed to submit proper documents, while the papers of those who had met the requirement were undergoing verification and authentication.
Diron said it was “not the practice” of the DPWH to start a project before acquiring right of way, noting that problems were inevitable once the project got started.
“Sometimes you can only spot an issue upon implementation. Let’s say you conducted a survey, made alignment plans then once you go down the landowner dies or sells his property … That’s where challenges crop up on our part. They really arise during implementation,” he said.
Balance of interests
Even after a court has decided in favor of the government in instances of expropriation, it also doesn’t mean that payments will be done immediately, Diron said.
“One of the limitations is if [the fund] is not allotted for a particular purpose, it needs appropriation. We have to balance the interest of the landowner [with] the interest of [the] government, which is to safeguard public funds and make sure that [payment] goes to the proper person,” he said.
It is easy to pay landowners, but it is so hard to undo an improper payment, Diron said.
“If there is delay, it’s for the benefit of the public and landowner,” he said.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1074029/dpwh-dealing-with-right-of-way-issues-says-villar
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Don’t delay railway projects, lawmakers urge DOTr
Lawmakers pressed the Department of Transportation (DOTr) on Wednesday to ensure that six railway projects, including a subway in Metro Manila, would not be hounded by delays that plagued past projects.
“The updates sound very good… but how can you assure us that the will be able to meet these timelines?” Cebu City Rep. Raul del Mar asked DOTr officials at the hearing of the House committee on transportation.
The officials led by Undersecretary Timothy John Batan briefed members of the House of Representatives on the status of railway projects under the Duterte administration’s “Build, Build, Build” program.
6 railway projects
With loans from the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the DOTr has lined up six railway projects, including the 147-kilometer North South Commuter Railway from Clark in Pampanga to Calamba City in Laguna province, which is projected to cost P777.5 billion; and the 35-km Metro Manila Subway project from Quezon City to Parañaque worth P356 billion.
It is also pursuing the P16.3-billion rehabilitation of Metro Rail Transit (MRT) 3 on Edsa, and the P12.9-billion expansion of Light Rail Transit (LRT) 1 to Cavite province and LRT 2 (Antipolo City segment).
The DOTr is also funding the establishment of a Philippine Railway Institute, which would provide training and accreditation of workers in the country’s railway industry.
Delays in 153 projects
Lawmakers, however, expressed concern that these projects may not be finished as scheduled and would entail added costs for the government.
In its 2017 report, the Commission on Audit (COA) questioned the failed implementation of 153 of 159 DOTr projects worth P58.9 billion, which included a number of railway projects.
The COA blamed changes in “policy directions by political leaders and economic managers.”
Batan assured lawmakers that the DOTr had set up a monitoring facility being hosted by the National Economic and Development Authority to ensure that the timelines were followed.
He said the MRT 3 rehabilitation project was in full swing following the signing of the contract on December 28, 2018 with the original Japanese contractor, Sumitomo Corp. The project is to be completed by March 2021.
Overhaul of trains
The project involves rehabilitation and upgrade of the railway system to its original “as-designed” state, and overhaul of 72 trains and replacement of tracks, as well as the upgrade of the signaling, power supply and communications systems.
Batan said the DOTr was set to demolish about 100 concrete piers of the unfinished phase of the Northrail project from Tutuban in Manila to Malolos City in Bulacan province to pave the way for the construction of a new railway structure.
The DOTr is relocating informal settlers living along the tracks, as well as bidding out contracts for the civil works and purchase of coaches.
The railway project’s southern end will extend from Tutuban to Calamba City, a stretch of 53 km, and will cut down travel time to one hour. It is set to be started in the second quarter of the year, and will be completed by 2023.
Construction of the Metro Manila Subway project is set to start in the first quarter and is expected to break ground this month, according to Batan. It is due to be completed by 2025.
The DOTr expects the subway to cut travel time from Quezon City to Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Parañaque City to 42 minutes, and will serve some 370,000 passengers daily in its opening year.
WHAT WENT BEFORE: The Northrail Project
The Northrail Project of the Arroyo administration has been revived as the Philippine National Railway Clark (PNR Clark), one of the “big-ticket projects” of the Duterte administration.
As planned during the term of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Northrail would extend the line in Manila northward to Bulacan province. Its first section would extend from the old Tutuban station in Manila to Malolos in Bulacan.
In 2008, Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr., star witness in the Senate inquiry into the controversial NBN-ZTE deal, disclosed that the Chinese businessmen, whom then Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. met with in January 2007, said they had been promised that the NBN project would be done on a loan basis just like the Northrail.
Then Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile also alleged that then Speaker Jose de Venecia was the main lobbyist for the project which, he said, was exorbitantly priced at $503 million for a 32-kilometer railroad.
Enrile said the terms of the loan were skewed unfairly in China’s favor.
The Department of Transportation (DOTr) said in February last year that it was reviving the PNR system with a line to the north as part of a bigger development plan for Clark and other cities outside Metro Manila, Phase 1 is the 38-km segment from Tutuban to Malolos, with 10 stations. It is expected to service 340,000 people daily in its opening year and would take 35 minutes for the trip.
The contract for the construction supervision and tender assistance consultant for PNR Clark Phase 1 was signed on Dec. 1, 2017.
In April last year, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said preconstruction activities for Phase 1 started in January with actual construction targeted by November last year.
Phase 2 is a 69-km stretch from Malolos to Clark Field in Pampanga province.
It will have 17 stations—Tutuban, Solis, Valenzuela, Caloocan, Meycauayan, Marilao, Bocaue, Balagtas, Guiguinto, Malolos, Calumpit, Apalit, San Fernando, Angeles, Clark, Clark International Airport and New Clark City.
The DOTr expects to complete the P225-billion Manila-Clark railway project in 2020. A trip to Clark International Airport from Metro Manila is expected to take 55 minutes. —Inquirer Research
SOURCES: INQUIRER ARCHIVES, DOTR WEBPAGE AND FB
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1074035/what-went-before-the-northrail-project
As planned during the term of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Northrail would extend the line in Manila northward to Bulacan province. Its first section would extend from the old Tutuban station in Manila to Malolos in Bulacan.
In 2008, Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr., star witness in the Senate inquiry into the controversial NBN-ZTE deal, disclosed that the Chinese businessmen, whom then Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. met with in January 2007, said they had been promised that the NBN project would be done on a loan basis just like the Northrail.
Then Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile also alleged that then Speaker Jose de Venecia was the main lobbyist for the project which, he said, was exorbitantly priced at $503 million for a 32-kilometer railroad.
Enrile said the terms of the loan were skewed unfairly in China’s favor.
The Department of Transportation (DOTr) said in February last year that it was reviving the PNR system with a line to the north as part of a bigger development plan for Clark and other cities outside Metro Manila, Phase 1 is the 38-km segment from Tutuban to Malolos, with 10 stations. It is expected to service 340,000 people daily in its opening year and would take 35 minutes for the trip.
The contract for the construction supervision and tender assistance consultant for PNR Clark Phase 1 was signed on Dec. 1, 2017.
In April last year, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said preconstruction activities for Phase 1 started in January with actual construction targeted by November last year.
Phase 2 is a 69-km stretch from Malolos to Clark Field in Pampanga province.
It will have 17 stations—Tutuban, Solis, Valenzuela, Caloocan, Meycauayan, Marilao, Bocaue, Balagtas, Guiguinto, Malolos, Calumpit, Apalit, San Fernando, Angeles, Clark, Clark International Airport and New Clark City.
The DOTr expects to complete the P225-billion Manila-Clark railway project in 2020. A trip to Clark International Airport from Metro Manila is expected to take 55 minutes. —Inquirer Research
SOURCES: INQUIRER ARCHIVES, DOTR WEBPAGE AND FB
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1074035/what-went-before-the-northrail-project
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