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Poor road infrastructure and its resultant traffic congestion, aggravated by government’s penchant for changing business rules midstream and breaching contracts with private partners, continue to dampen investor confidence despite the Philippines’ status as Asia’s newest economic star.

Both the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines and the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines agree that infrastructure is badly needed if economic growth is to be maintained, and that implementation of private-public partnership (PPP) projects needs to be accelerated, and that poor infrastructure combined with fast growth will lower growth if it creates too much congestion.

The seemingly unabated congestion at the Port of Manila resulting in a large part from the failure of cargo forwarders and truck haulers to move their goods fast enough in and out of the metropolis, or do business more efficiently in alternate ports north and south of the capital, buttress the never-ending lament by business leaders that poor infrastructure and the ensuing monster traffic are among the worries of foreign and local businesses, and are major deal-breakers for prospective investors.

Two projects that could definitely held decongest our roads are the parallel expressways being built separately by San Miguel Corp. (SMC) and the Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) to connect the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) and South Luzon Expressway (SLEX).

MPTC’s unsolicited proposal involves building a 13.4-kilometer expressway linking NLEX and SLEX next to the parallel skyway now being built by SMC through its consortium with the Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp. (Citra).

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The SMC-Citra project, which did not have to go through a Swiss Challenge, is the Skyway Stage 3 of the SLEX, while MPTC’s portion involves the construction of the four-lane elevated expressway, originally via the Philippine National Railway (PNR) tracks, with three exits to connect NLEX with SLEX.

Both mega expressways are now facing delays after the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board chaired by President Aquino recently gave its go-ahead to the North to South Railway Project (NSRP), which has two railroad components from Manila to Bulacan in Central Luzon and then from Manila to Legazpi City in Bicol.

About a week ago, Public Works Undersecretary Rafael Yabut said the completion of the two connector roads would be delayed by the entry of the North and South Railway Project, as both have to be “reconfigured” with the planned rebuilding of the railway going to Southern Luzon.

This is because the railroad tracks would run parallel to the connector road now being built by SMC-Citra and to the other one that MPTC offered in May 2010 to build under an unsolicted proposal for the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) mode.

SMC-Citra’s Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3 involves a 14.82-km. six-lane skyway from Buendia to Balintawak and is due for commercial operation by 2017.

Meanwhile, after finally deciding that the best way is to subject this unsolicited proposal to a Swiss challenge, which is what MPTC offered way back in 2010 in the first place, the proposed NLEX-SLEX Connector Road has stumbled into another roadblock, this time the need to “reconfigure” its design in light of government’s belated plan to use the same PNR tracks for its P287-billion North-South Railway Project (NSRP) from Malolos, Bulacan to Tutuban in Manila and all the way to Legazpi City in Albay.

Phase 1 of NSRP, which was approved by the NEDA Board only last February, would involve the construction of a 36.7-kilometer elevated commuter railway from Malolos to Tutuban, and would be due for completion by the third quarter of 2020.

Under the original MPTC proposal, the 13-kilometer NLEX-SLEX Connector Road would cost about P18 billion, but, according to news reports, the amount was cut to P11 billion for an eight-kilometer stretch after MPIC reached an agreement with SMC for the latter to initially shoulder the cost of the five-kilometer common alignment connecting the NLEX-SLEX connector road to SMC-Citra’s Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3 project.

But the need to realign the MPTC project, for one, would reportedly jack up its cost by P3 billion more to P14 billion—as both NSRP and this proposed expressway would both use the PNR right-of-way.

The two connector road projects would address the port congestion problem because, aside from making travel by motorists and commuters to and from Northern and Southern Luzon faster and easier, both expresways would decongest Manila’s ports in encouraging the movement of cargoes or delivery of goods to the alternate ports in Batangas port in the south and the Subic and Clark freeports in the North.

Both would improve transport logistics as a result of the more efficient movement of cargoes, roll-on, roll-off (RoRo) vessels, and passengers in and out of the ports located in Manila, and would reduce travel time from NLEX to SLEX to only 15 to 20 minutes.

Investors would start flocking to the country when the project is completed because it would enhance connectivity between our international airports and seaports, including the Subic freeport by way of the NLEX-Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX) route, the Batangas Port via SLEX, and the Clark International Airport to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).

This would, in turn, improve linkages between the key growth areas of Metro Manila, Central Luzon, North Luzon and the Clark-Subic corridor. 

Source: The Philippine Star