March 27, 2013
The Japanese government has provided the Philippines with P4.63-billion through Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) ODA STEP Loan for the construction of Palao Airport in Bohol. The remaining P2.6 billion will be funded by the Government of the Philippines (GOP).
Japanese Ambassador Toshinao Urabe and Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario signed the loan agreements on Monday.
Panglao airport set for completion in 2017 will replace the much smaller Tagbilaran airport whose traffic has outgrown its size. The airport project is among the priority projects included
in the 2011-2016 Public Investment Program (PIP) of the Department of
Transportation and Communication (DOTC).
Under the proposed agreement, 81% or P5,765,238,000.00 should represent
the loan proceeds from JICA and the remaining 19 % or P1,372,722,000.00 should be the counterpart of the Government of the Philippines (GOP), but what was signed was a loan grant of only for 4.6 billion.
The Department of Transportation and Communication has already allotted 72.59 million pesos for landside works of the new airport, including the cleaning of 216
hectares of land and the construction of a barbed-wire perimeter fence over 10
kilometers long.
Under the Forward Obligational Authority issued by the DBM,
P867,112,000.00 is earmarked for 2013; P1,714,429,000.00 for 2014;
P3,281,282,000.00 for 2015; P1,042,245,000.00 for 2016 and
P59,892,000.00 for 2017.
The Official Development Assistance projects on infrastructure development form part of the economic pillar of the Philippines-Japan Strategic Partnership. Japan continues to be the country’s top source of official development loans.
There's nothing wrong to have loans no matter how big it is as long as it is all intended for the projects that will develop the country or the community, especially that this project will recede a lot of money if it is already operating. It is already in the hands of the government on how to deal this project to make it more efficient in order to generate much income for more development.
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