The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority said Wednesday it secured the green light from the Transportation Department to include a P100-billion elevated railway and expressway project from Subic Freeport to the port of Manila among priority projects.
SBMA chairman Martin Dino said the 100-kilometer multi-modal elevated railway and expressway project would greatly relieve port and traffic congestion in Metro Manila and increase cargo transit in Subic Port, which was currently operating at only a third of its rated capacity of 600,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit containers.
Dino said the construction of the project could be completed in 48 months. He said he would ask for Malacañang’s approval to have the project included for financing under the Philippine-China Framework of Cooperation.
Dino also said his team was already working on increasing Subic Bay Port’s capacity for new container terminals 3 and 4 by an additional 600,000 TEUs.
He also welcomed the appointment of lawyer Wilma Eisma as SBMA administrator, saying the Freeport now had “an excellent working team.”
“Now we can really move forward at Subic in our goal to raise investments and revenues, eliminate smuggling and stamp out corruption,” Dino said.
Eisma replaced former administrator Roberto Garcia and brought to Subic her wide management experience. She is expected to take over the post next week in what Dino described as “a great start to a new year in our effort to turn Subic into an anchor of national growth.”
This developed as the new win-win tandem vowed to promote Subic as a major alternative gateway for international cargos.
Dino, who was appointed by Malacañang in September, said there were “no more roadblocks to a wide-ranging reform in Subic, because now we can truly say we have an excellent working team.”
He said President Rodrigo Duterte was expected to name the remaining members of the SBMA board, the policy-making body, so the Freeport “can move rapidly and urgently in seeking new investments and building much-needed infrastructure.”
