IF the government decision-making on the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Terminal 3, the Camp John Hay Property, and the North Luzon Expressway (Nlex)-Tondo Extension project is a demonstration of the way the government deals with infrastructure issues, it explains why infrastructure facilities in the Philippines take decades to build. Further, it shows why they are riddled with defects, despite the recognition of their urgency and indispensability to our country’s economic development.
After planning the Naia 3 in 1997, the government entangled itself with all sorts of legal problems with the private builder Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco)-Fraport. These problems frustrated the scheduled soft opening of the completed structure in 2002, stretched the period of total idleness to 2008—when the government began operating the facility—and now has been told by the Court of Appeals (CA) that it could not take over until it compensated the private owner.
The Camp John Hay Property involved the government Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) entering into a contract with the private sector Camp John Hay Development Corp. (CJHDC) in the early 1990s for the development of the resort. Before long the characteristic legal problems arose over payments for rent and incomes foregone. The CA last week decided that the BCDA had no right to collect back rents. On the contrary, it must compensate CJHDC for its failure to comply with some of its contractual obligations.
The Nlex-Tondo Extension project involved an unsolicited proposal from Metro Pacific Investment Corp. (MPIC). Accepted in the 1990s, the proposal was put up by the government to a Swiss Challenge some time later, but no bidders responded. The project then went into hibernation, until now, when MPIC decided to go ahead with its implementation, obviously hoping no impediment crops up along the way.
Clearly, something is wrong with this kind of government decision-making. After 13 years the Naia 3 is still in limbo; so is Camp John Hay, after a similar length of time. The Nlex-Tondo project is being saved from oblivion only by private-sector initiative.
The first thing wrong with this kind of government decision-making is its utter lack of a sense of urgency. Untiring references to completion periods of three or four years notwithstanding, the government seems happy to show results within periods of 25 years. At the rate we are going, not only will we never catch up with our neighbors, but we will fall even farther behind.
Second, the government does not care about project planning, though it is obsessed with annual macro planning. Lack of detail in macro plans understandably gives rise to unwelcome initiatives by the other party, generating controversy.
Finally, the government has no respect for its contractual obligations because it thinks it is too powerful to be resisted by the other party. Wrong. The other party may be puny in comparison with the gigantic government, but it can resist government power, as it has shown in various instances.
This kind of government behavior is anathema to the requirements of accelerated economic development. It must change.
What our country needs is a government that delivers on its promises, now and not 25 years from now. Infrastructure that is well conceived and well constructed, built through the collaborative endeavor of the public sector and the private sector properly, underpins the economy’s long-term growth.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano