JAPAN has committed to provide financial assistance for the rehabilitation and maintenance of the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT 3).
This follows the exchange of note verbales between the Philippines and Japan, which involves obtaining Official Development Assistance (ODA) financing under Japan International Cooperation Agency’s (Jica) Special Terms for Economic Partnership.
Jica will conduct its feasibility study from January to February to assess what needs to be fixed in the MRT system.
Once this is completed, the signing of the loan agreement and procurement of the rehabilitation and maintenance provider will follow between March and April with the mobilization of the Japanese provider expected within the second quarter of this year.
Japan assured that it would nominate a provider that is highly qualified and has a strong and reliable track record.
The Japan ODA for the MRT 3 Rehabilitation and Maintenance Project is part of the DOTr’s strategies to improve the operations of the railway system, which involves promoting accountability with the termination of Busan Universal Rail Inc., ensuring continued service delivery by establishing the Maintenance Transition Team and purchasing needed spare parts, contracting a rehabilitation and maintenance service provider together with an ODA partner and putting in place a long-term maintenance and operator provider for MRT 3.
PTV-4 goes digital
Sharing the same goal of fully modernizing public broadcasting in the region, Japan and the Philippines’s respective public communications agencies have committed to digitalize the latter’s state television on January 3.
Television viewers will now have a much better and clearer reception of the Philippines’s government television network People’s Television 4 (PTV-4) after the ceremonial switch-on of the network’s Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcast, migrating from being analog to fully digital.
Japan’s Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Seiko Noda and Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin M. Andanar led the ceremonial switch-on at PTV-4’s station in Quezon City along with Department of Information and Communications Technology Undersecretary Eliseo M. Rio Jr. and other PCOO officials.
Noda noted having digital broadcasting facilities where citizens have free access—particularly during times of calamities and emergencies—would greatly improve lives.
For Andanar’s part, he said the modernization program is one of the most meaningful projects under President Duterte’s administration.
The communications secretary confirmed the magnitude of the technological infrastructure improvement is as comprehensive as connecting more than 70 provinces, as well as more than a thousand cities and municipalities in the country.
Through this, he said the administration’s goal to bring the government closer to its people is now achievable more than ever. PTV-4’s Network General Manager Dino Apolonio vowed the station would do its part as a responsive digital network as the PCOO targets the Philippines to achieve full, digitalized terrestrial broadcasting by 2030. The TV station sees the digitalization as a model for other Asian countries to replicate, particularly in investing in the enhancement of state-owned media.
Aerol John Pateña and Joyce Ann L. Rocamora/PNA
1 comment
Can we have more details? Based on the article, we are still on the note verbale stage which is merely an informal exchange of notes of intent with nothing signed. It also details what has been planned, but what is committed to paper? Consider also that not much can be done until JICA completes its feasability study.