âBuild, Build, Buildâ enters legacy-building stage
May 11, 2021 | 12:04 am
Reporter
HEADING into its final year in office, the government will have tweaked the âBuild, Build, Buildâ (BBB) program multiple times to favor those projects with the best chance of being even partially completed before President Rodrigo R. Duterte steps down.
Starting with 75 big-ticket projects at its launch in 2017, the P8.4-trillion flagship infrastructure program was meant to address the Philippinesâ lack of competitiveness because of bad roads, transportation, and crippling road traffic that made Metro Manila a difficult place to live for its residents, much less investors.
But the project list was subjected to three revisions in four years, entailing several rounds of feasibility reassessment. The result was that some projects were omitted and other more âshovel-readyâ projects added to the list, ultimately expanding it to over 104. The National Economic and Development Authority board, chaired by the President, put the value of these projects at P4.13 trillion in mid-2020, a little lower that the P4.23-trillion cost estimate for the 2019 revised list of 100 projects.