Gov’t reaching out to business

The Duterte administration’s economic managers have assured big businesses that they could still participate in big-ticket infrastructure projects to be rolled out under the ambitious “Build, Build, Build” program.

In a meeting called by the government economic team on Monday, some of the country’s top business leaders were told they could pitch both solicited and unsolicited proposals for joint venture or public-private partnership (PPP) projects, the Department of Finance said in a statement.

During the meeting, Finance Secretary and economic team head Carlos G. Dominguez III assured the businessmen that the Duterte administration was not abandoning the PPP mode in implementing its ambitious infrastructure program. He said the government was merely exploring ways on how PPP could be most advantageous not only to the government in terms of costs, but also to the people in terms of how soon they could start enjoying the benefits from the fastest roll-out of major projects.

“The Duterte administration is open to unsolicited proposals for so long as these do not entail government subsidies or guarantees. For solicited proposals, the government is open to PPP arrangements with private entities as long as these are consistent with legal conditions such as the 50 percent limit of government undertakings on total project cost,” Dominguez stressed.

According to Dominguez, “pursuing a new mode of PPP would avoid protracted negotiations and disputes among private sector entities that often delayed the implementation of previous PPP initiatives.”

“The past administration relied on the traditional PPP exclusively to finance the projects. The situation has changed a bit because our President is beginning to tap a lot of financial commitments, and thanks to the last administration, we have a big headroom for debt and they left us quite a bit of money. It’s incumbent upon us to use those to push the projects ahead,” Dominguez said.

“People have been questioning us why we are supposedly abandoning PPP. We are not abandoning PPP. For us, it is just another way of financing projects,” the Finance chief said.

Also, “the private sector won’t be out of the loop in taking part in large-scale infra projects because the government would still need private contractors to continue implementing them,” he said.

The DOF said the private sector was represented by the following businessmen during the meeting: LT Group’s Michael Tan and Ismael Gozon; Ayala Corp.’s John Eric Francia; Filinvest Corp.’s Josephine Gotianun-Yap; Aboitiz Equity Ventures’ Sabin Aboitiz; JG Summit Holdings’ Lance Gokongwei; Megawide Corp.’s Edgar Saavedra; Megaworld’s Kevin Tan; First Gas Corp.’s Giles Puno; Citadel Holdings’ Ricky Delgado; Metro Pacific Investments Corp.’s Joey Lim, and Asean Business Advisory Council’s Joey Concepcion.

The economic team, meanwhile, included Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia, Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, Public Works Secretary Mark Villar, and Bases Conversion and Development Authority president and CEO Vince Dizon.