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Fillip or flop?
30 September 2011
A year has passed since the Filipino government unveiled an ambitious PPP programme. With scores of projects on the drawing board, but significant structural and institutional obstacles to overcome, can the country deliver on its promises? By Antony Collins.
The government of the Philippines stole a march on its regional neighbours in November 2010 with a groundbreaking PPP programme; the most ambitious yet unveiled in South East Asia. President Benigno Aquino identified more than 50 projects to be potentially privately financed, in a bid to relieve the state’s weighty debt burden and deliver infrastructure investment.
The project list was as varied as it was broad, covering transport, health, education and infrastructure. Details, for the most part, were sketchy but proposals included: a new port in Cebu; a new railway in Mindanao; the R-7 expressway; a programme of primary and secondary school PPPs; the Philippine orthopedic centre; and the Kaliwa Low dam project.
Out of the scores of projects though, just 10 transport schemes were earmarked as priorities for the first phase of the programme. This restrained launch has attracted plaudits. Harvey Weaver, a projects partner at Ashurst, says there...
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