The P355.6-billion Metro Manila Subway Project (MMSP) is 25.09 percent complete as of December 2021, according to the Department of Transportation ( DOTr).
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The MMSP is the Philippines’ first underground mass transport system and one of its largest infrastructure projects.
A subway in Metro Manila has been planned and proposed as early as 1973 in the Urban Transport Study in Manila Metropolitan Area (UTSMMA).
DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade said however that when the Duterte Administration took over the government in 2016, the MMSP has no completed feasibility study, and no NEDA Board approval and financing. There is also not a single contract under review.
This means that for more than 40 years and six administrations, it was "all talks, proposals, plans, studies, drawings, and powerpoint presentations,” said Tugade.
At the moment, the MMSP is NEDA Board-approved, funded by the Japanese, and its partial operability civil works, trains, and electromechanical systems already contracted.
Actual construction works by the design-build contractor for the partial operability section began in 2019 with site clearing works at MMSP’s Valenzuela Depot.
In February 2021, two out of 25 humungous Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM) to be used for the MMSP, arrived in the country.
Once operational, the MMSP will reduce travel time between Quezon City and NAIA from 1 hour and 10 minutes to just 35 minutes.