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PGMA’s infra projects in super regions is key to RP's economic opportunities
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Jul 2, 2009 - 11:43:42 AM

MANILA, July 3 (PNA) –- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s infrastructure projects throughout the country, especially in the super regions, is the key to economic opportunities, Malacañang said yesterday.

In a press briefing at the Ozeano Park Restaurant at the Luneta Park in Ermita, Manila, Presidential Management Staff (PMS) Secretary Hermogenes Esperon Jr. also said he just came from a series of on-site inspection of the President’s priority infrastructure projects.

The regular briefing was held outside the Malacañang Palace in celebration of Malacañang Press Corps president Paolo Romero’s birthday.

Esperon, who co-chairs the Pro-Performance Team that monitors the projects, extolled the projects’ positive impact to people’s lives and the country’s overall economy, and gave assurance that more projects will be completed by the end of this year.

“President Arroyo wants the priority infrastructure programs and projects, or those identified in her State of the Nation Addresses (SONA) to be completed this year. That‘s what we will do,” Esperon stressed.

Esperon said many of the President’s priority programs and projects which she identified in her SONAs are now fully operational and are widening the economic activities in many parts of the country.

Esperon particularly cited the South Luzon Expressway-Southern Tagalog Arterial Road (SLEX-STAR) project, which will ease the traffic and facilitate the flow of goods and services from Alabang Viaduct to Sto. Tomas Batangas and onwards to Batangas City and vice versa.

Esperon said the project, consisting of Toll Road 1 (Alabang Viaduct), Toll Road 2 (Sta-Rosa-Calamba) and Toll Road 3 (Calamba-Sto-Tomas), will connect SLEX to STAR, which is composed of STAR 1, the 22.16 kms. four lane road from Sto. Tomas to Lipa City completed in 2000, and STAR 2, the 19.74 kms. four lane asphalt concrete surface road from Lipa City to Batangas City.

According to Esperon, this project will not only ease and speed up travel to and from Batangas and Laguna but also connect the CALABARZON (Calamba-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon) to the Luzon Urban Beltway and North Luzon Agribusiness Quadrangle through other priority infrastructure projects such as the C5-NLEX-SLEX Link, Subic Clark Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX) project and Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX) project.

“With this major infrastructure project, new centers of business and commerce in the South are expected to open, which would help decongest Metro Manila and would provide our exporters faster and safer access to the Free Port Zone in Subic and the airport in Clark and the NAIA,” Esperon said.

The Pro-Performance team, composed of government and private sector representatives, has embarked on a more intensified project monitoring and evaluation recently to ensure the completion of the other priority infra projects this year, composed of airports, ports, roads and bridges, power, railway, irrigation, farm-to-market roads, flood control, hospitals upgrading and barangay electrification.

Esperon said that among those projects to be completed soon that will surely boost people’s productivity and growth are the Cebu North Coastal Road Project, composed of the four-lane Casanga Bay Bridge and the Metro Cebu Development Project III or the Cebu South Coastal Road Project, composed of, among others, a bridge over Mananga River, coastal highway with 6-lane asphalt road from Brgy. Tangko, Talisay City towards Kawit Island and to the end of the reclamation area, offshore viaduct from the reclamation area and Ludo and Luym Corporation Compound and along the coast up to seaport area, offshore ramps between viaduct bridge and subway, and a four-lane tunnel that passes underneath the Park of Plaza Independencia and exiting at the Sergio Osmeña Road.