At the Pulong Saliksikan forum on Oct. 24, Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) Senior Researcher Adoracion Navarro said that the country has been underinvesting in infrastructure for the past five years. Presenting a study, "Financing Infrastructure in the Philippines”, conducted with PIDS President Gilberto Llanto, Ms. Navarro said: "In the last five years, infrastructure’s share to the GDP ranged between a low of 1.4% to a high of 2.09%.” The recommended share is 5%. Though Ms. Navarro noted the government’s efforts to improve spending on infrastructure, she said that more can still be done to further stimulate state investments in the sector. She cited the government’s public-private partnership (PPP) program as a driving factor that could boost infrastructure spending but also said there are challenges in implementing it successfully. "[Capacity] of implementing agencies to process PPP project and the inadequacies of the PPP law are among the hurdles of the PPP,” she said. Of the 10 PPP projects on the government’s priority list, only four have been awarded to date, Ms. Navarro noted.
