The Public Works Department is paving more roads to development, by undertaking massive projects the country has not seen before.
Data from the agency showed that since the start of the term of President Rodrigo Duterte in July 2016, the DPWH widened 1,908 kilometers of roads, built 328 km of bypasses and diversion roads, 393 km of missing gaps connecting national roads and 1,316 km of access roads leading to airports, seaports/Ro-Ro ports and tourist destinations.
“DPWH has also widened a total of 511 bridges spanning 23,929 meters, replaced 204 bridges, spanning 8,305 meters and built 127 new bridges spanning 6,260 meters,” Public Works Secretary Mark Villar said.
“We have also rehabilitated 939 bridges spanning 40,192 meters and strengthened 642 bridges, spanning 29,260 meters,” he said.
Villar said the construction was happening in every region in the country as part of President Duterte’s call to spread development nationwide.
He said that by 2022, the Duterte administration would have constructed the Luzon Spine Expressway Network—a network of high-standard highways with a total length of 834.72 km, or about twice the six of 382 km of existing expressways.
“Once completed, travel time from Metro Manila to San Fernando, La Union will be reduced from 6 hours and 55 minutes to 3 hours and 10 minutes. Moreover, travel time from Ilocos to Bicol will be reduced from 19 hours and 40 minutes to 8 hours and 15 minutes,” Villar said.
“We are on target. We have already opened several sections of the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway, the Arterial Plaridel Bypass Project, the Laguna Lake Expressway and the Radial Road 10,” he said.
“Within the year, we expect to open the NLEx Harbor Link Project, which will connect McArthur Highway and C3 and reduce travel time from Quezon City to Manila to only 10 minutes,” Villar said.
Villar said the Inter-Island Linkage Project—a network of short and long span bridges which would allow land travel from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, is also in advanced stages.
“In October 2018, we will start the construction of the 3.77-km Panguil Bay Bridge that will connect the city of Tangub in Misamis Occidental to the municipality of Tubod in Lanao del Norte,” he said.
“Once completed in 2021, it will only take 10 minutes to reach Tangub City from Tubod using the bridge compared to the 2.5 hours it would take using the 102-km route via the Tubod- Kapatagan-Molave-Tangub road,” he said.
“Travel time between Ozamiz City, Misamis Occidental and Mukas, Kolambugan, Lanao Del Norte will be reduced from 2.5 hours using Ro-Ro operations to 20 minutes using the Panguil Bay Bridge,” he said.
Also included in this network is the Bataan-Cavite Interlink, the Mindoro-Batangas Super Bridge, the Panay-Guimaras-Negors Link, the Negros-Cebu Link Bridge, the Panguil Bay Bridge, the Guicam Bridge, the Camarines-Catanduanes Friend Bridge, the Luzon Sorsogon-Samar Link Bridge and the Davao Samall Bridge.
Amid the construction binge, the Labor Department reported a year-on-year increase of 468,000 jobs generated in the construction sector, based on a survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority in April 2018.
“We are elated with the strong performance of the construction sector. In April 2018, total employment in the sector reached 4.012 million from 3.544 million during the same period in 2017. This is a 13.2-percent increase,” said Labor Secretary Silvestre Bellow III.
“Construction is the largest contributor to employment among the industry subsectors during the period and we believe the ‘Build, Build, Build’ infrastructure program is the main driver of growth,” Bello said.
Villar said the ‘Build, Build, Build’ program was gaining momentum at an unprecedented rate.
In search of new construction workers, the ‘Build, Build, Build’ team launched ‘Jobs, Jobs, Jobs’ at the SMX Convention Center on Aug. 12.