Income-generating infra projects pushed

MANILA, Philippines - Businessman Reghis M. Romero II of construction conglomerate R-II Builders is urging his peers to go for income-generating and self-sustaining projects in order to help the government free up more funds for other urgent needs while ultimately surmounting the infrastructure backlog.

Romero said the construction industry could build world-class ports and airports, industrial parks, expressways, power and water generation and supply lines, and other poverty-alleviating physical infrastructure through various schemes under the public-private partnership (PPP) program at the least possible cost to the government, if at all.

“Our industry players may also invest directly in such projects and run them as ongoing business concerns in order to help fill up the infrastructure gaps in the supply chain through the use of private capital instead of taxpayers’ money,” Romero suggested.

“Well, that is if we really want to catch up with many of our ASEAN neighbors that are moving quite fast in their climb from Third World to First World status,” Romero added.

He said the publicly-listed investment firms involved in construction-related projects could take advantage of the rising value of their stocks and use the influx of fresh funds from the stock market to expand their operations and project portfolio.

“The infrastructure-related logistical inefficiencies that push the prices of our products for export and even for local consumption should be a major concern. But we should not make everything dependent on the government because of its limited resources. We have to look deep into what we can do as members of the industry and see what we can contribute individually and collectively,” remarked Romero, past national president of the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Associations (CREBA) and current chairman of its Council of Leaders.

Romero issued this statement following reports on the insufficiency of the P142 billion funds released by the government for various infrastructure projects for this year.

That amount is P358 billion short of the P500 billion reportedly needed annually to address the country’s infrastructure backlog.

The P500 billion was computed at only five percent of the country’s P10-trillion economy, but would amount to a whopping 27.7 percent of the current national budget of P1.8 trillion.

Romero said “getting all that money (P500 billion) from taxes would affect other areas of governance of equal importance and might eventually force the government to consider foreign borrowings and/or new measures for increased taxation, which could pose a disincentive to business and dampen entrepreneurial activities all together.”

“The key message here is ‘self-help’, which should apply to both the rich and the poor. We have to face the country’s problems together, and push each other up instead of pulling each other down,” Romero stressed, apparently referring to the renowned “Filipino crab mentality.”

Romero’s companies have adopted the same scheme in the development of the Manila North Harbor and the Manila Harbour Centre.

“Through ‘self-help’, the industry can help provide business solutions to government problems,” which are also our own, in much the same way that our problems are also theirs (the government’s). So I presume that it is in this spirit that the PPP has come about, and just as appropriately that we in the industry should act,” Romero said.