MANILA, (MILLAT/APP/AFP) – Desperately needed
airports and trains are part of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s envisioned “golden age of infrastructure”, but graft, red tape and other perennial problems threaten the $170-billion plan.
Unprecedented influxes of money from China and Japan are key planks of the hoped-for building frenzy, which aims to rectify decades of underspending that has been one of the main anchors on the Philippine economy.
Decrepit light rail lines in the capital of Manila, which snake above
ever-worsening traffic that has come to be known as “Carmageddon”, are among
the most obvious symbols of the infrastructure problems.
“The city is really suffering now from lack of mobility, not only in terms of mobility, it’s really the total absence of infrastructure,” Duterte said last week as he described Manila as “decaying”.
Duterte and his aides have repeatedly said the six years of his
administration will be the “golden age of infrastructure”, with a record $168 billion to be spent on 5,000 projects across the nation.
If the plans come to fruition, infrastructure spending would reach 7.2 percent of the gross domestic product by 2022, when Duterte is due to step down — a huge increase from 1.8 percent in 2011.
The Philippines ranks 95th out of 138 countries for quality of
infrastructure, and behind most of its Southeast Asian neighbours,
Japanese-based financial services group Nomura said in a recent report.
It said the lack of infrastructure was a huge drag on economic development, citing a Japan International Cooperation Agency estimate of traffic costs in Manila alone as equivalent to four percent of GDP.