The Duterte administration may have failed to deliver the jobs it promised under its Build, Build, Build, infrastructure build up program, according to Ibon Foundation Inc.
Ibon said every year since 2017, growth in construction employment has been smaller than what it was in 2016, even as the program promised to create 1.2 million jobs annually from 2017 to 2022.
However, based on its estimates, the annual average job generation in the pre-pandemic years from all sectors from 2017 to 2019 may have only reached 313,000. The figures, Ibon said, is the lowest among all pre-martial law administrations.
“The economy needs mending in its production sectors, especially those catering to domestic needs and that have the capability to create meaningful jobs for the mass of jobless and sustainable incomes for the poor majority,” IBON’s Rosario Guzman said.
Apart from the jobs, Guzman said, the government may be expected to fall short on the amount and number of infrastructure flagship projects (IFP) targeted for completion by the administration.
She said if 29 IFPs are not completed by the end of 2021 and 2022, all the finished projects will still just amount to P365.24 billion, or only 7.8 percent of the total project cost of P4.7 trillion for all targeted IFPs.
“Much remains to be done actually, with 51 projects going beyond 2023, while 28 others are still in the pipeline,” Guzman said.
She explained that only 11 of over 100 infrastructure flagship projects or IFPs have been completed as of May 2021.
She added that the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) listed another 12 IFPs that may be done by the end of 2021 and another 17 by the end of 2022.
If these were even feasible, Guzman said, there would be a total of 40 finished projects under President Duterte’s watch.
Ibon said the government started with a list of 75 IFPs in 2017. In 2020, Neda revised the list twice, increasing this to 104 and then to 112, which no longer included 7 of the 11 finished projects.
The government retained only 42 of the original 75 and added new ones that were considered more doable. Ibon stated that the new projects included the National ID System and projects that were continued from previous administrations.
“The list was obviously revised to increase the chances of completing a respectable number of projects,” Guzman said.
Of the 11 projects completed so far, Ibon said six were not included in the original 2017 IFP list. Two of these six—the LRT 2 East Extension and the Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3—were started under the previous administration.
Of the 12 IFPs expected to be finished by the end of this year, 11 are new additions to the list, including two previously identified projects that had also been started long before President Duterte’s term.
These are the Unified Grand Central Station, which was a previous commitment by the Arroyo administration but was stalled due to disputes and the Malitubog-Maridagao Irrigation Project, which began in 2011.
Further, Ibon said that of the 17 IFPs for completion by end of 2022, only the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project was in the 2017 list, while the rest were only added last year.