Phil’s readiness on PPP facilitates on answering classroom backlogs (News Feature)

Phil’s readiness on PPP facilitates on answering classroom backlogs

By: Genievieve Sarmiento (published in The Scholastican: the official student publication of St. Scholastica’s College-Manila)

Philippines defeated Japan and China in its readiness in the Public-Private Partnership Program (PPP) making it on the 8^th rank in The 2011 Infrascope Study created by European Intelligence Unit (EIU) and commissioned by Asian Development Bank (ADB).

In a scale of 0 to 100 being 100 as the “ideal environment for PPP projects”, the country scored 47.1 out 100 while China 49.8, Japan 63.7 and Australia 92.3 at the top. The study contains an assessment of the countries in Asia-Pacific region in their ability to manage public-private infrastructure projects.

The Public-Private Partnerships is a long term agreement between public and private sectors to achieve a common goal. In President Benigno S. Aquino III’s administration, PPP is a social contract wherein it recognizes private sector as the key to national growth and development in infrastructures, governance, public service and investment programming services. Private resources are used in financing development projects initiated by the Government as stated at the PPP center.

There are three criteria in the selection of projects in the PPP website, 1) Readiness of the project, 2) openness in meeting the sector’s needs, and 3) Implementability of the project.

PPP for School Infrastructure Project (PSIP) is one of the Department of Education’s (DepEd) PPP project for classrooms construction nationwide, Mark Nimeno, Project Manager of PSIP said. It aims to decongest 10-year curriculum and promotes mastery of learning in support of the K-12 Program through provision of additional school facilities making the classrooms in its ideal size of 45:1 meaning 45 students per class.

The government acknowledges the private sector’s importance in the design and construction of 9,301 classrooms which costs P16.3 billion in 2,204 existing schools which is consistent with the Minimum Performance Standards and Specifications (MPSS) set by DepEd. It answers our classroom backlog which numbers 66,800 in 2010. These are one-storey and two-storey classrooms including seats and toilets in 2,204 public schools in Regions 1,3 and 4-A. Maintenance of these will also fall within the next 10 years under a build-lease-and-transfer contract, Nimeno mentioned.

DepEd Undersecretary Francis Varela said in an interview that Bayani Fernando’s BF Corp. and Riverbanks Development Corp. won the contract (Package A for Region 1) which has annual lease payment costing P344.6 million annually for 10 years. Meanwhile, Megawide, in collaboration with Citicore Investment Holdings Inc., won the PPP project packages A and B for Regions III and IV-A with lease payments costing P523 million and P760 million per annum each year for the next 10 years .

In choosing the recipient schools, DepEd considered the following criteria: presence of shortage, complete site ownership, available of space for the construction and ease of mobilization for the architects, technical engineers and staff of DepEd.

Nimeno clarifies that the PPP Center is the one who assists and facilitates the PPP projects of its Implementing Agencies (IAs) in this case, the DepEd.

DepEd is also looking at the construction of 30,000 classrooms as mentioned by Education Secretary Armin Luistro in an interview. In fact, they already set aside P12 billion for reducing classroom shortage. This project costs PhP 10.04 Billion and is a Build-Lease and Transfer (BLT) contractual arrangement.