NIGHT OWL
Anna Mae Lamentillo
President Rodrigo Duterte’s marching orders to his “Build, Build, Build” team was clear from the onset: Finish as many projects as possible at the soonest possible time. Whoever gets the credit is none of our business.
I recall when senatorial aspirant and former Secretary Mark Villar was appointed to lead the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), he took the responsibility with a firm resolve. I remember him saying that he wants to end his stint as czar of “Build, Build, Build” knowing that he gave it everything he got.
When he started institutionalizing reforms in DPWH, there were many challenges — from ghost projects, delays, right-of-way issues and death threats. But we knew that if we are to make genuine change in the way government infrastructure is built, then reforms are a prerequisite.
On the first six months of his stint, Secretary Mark adopted drone and satellite technology for monitoring of DPWH projects and eliminated ghost projects via a geotagging system.
The DPWH used a technology called the Infra-Track App, which has a built-in geotagging feature that plots photos inputted in the system for monitoring in the exact geographic coordinates where they were taken. The system automatically alerts key officials of DPWH when a project is misreported from a different location. This way, Secretary Mark ensured that there were no ghost projects in the DPWH.
Former DPWH Secretary Mark Villar
When the system detects a five percent negative slippage, the contractor is given a warning and must submit a “catch-up program” to eliminate the delay. If the contractor incurs a delay of at least 15 percent, he will be given a final warning and must submit a more detailed program of activities with weekly physical targets. Said contractor will also be pre-disqualified from future biddings until after the negative slippage has been reduced to less than 15 percent.
Secretary Mark also resolved the decades-old problem of right-of-way (ROW) acquisition, which has hounded many infrastructure projects. For instance, it took six presidents to complete Radial Road 10. But in the first six months of the Duterte administration, the ROW issues were resolved in coordination with the local government units. Now, travel time between Manila and Navotas City was reduced from one hour to 30 minutes.
Selfie with the 'Build, Build, Build' team at the inauguration of the Cavite-Laguna Expressway.
Former DPWH Secretary Mark Villar inspect C5-Southlink -- a project which would connect the cities of Paranaque, Las Pinas, Pasay and Taguig.
Mark Villar and the author inspect Skyway Stage 3, one of 25 projects aimed at decongesting EDSA.