The Administration That Promised Build Better More Has Built Some Things and Is Building Other Things at Variable Speeds
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
Build Better More: The Infrastructure Programme and Its Variable Delivery
MANILA — The Marcos administration’s “Build Better More” infrastructure programme is the successor to the Duterte administration’s “Build Build Build” programme, which itself succeeded the Aquino administration’s Public-Private Partnership programme. Each administration has branded its infrastructure initiative and inherited the specific combination of planned projects, partially completed projects, cancelled projects, and projects whose completion status is subject to definitional flexibility that characterises Philippine infrastructure across administrations. Build Better More’s programme list is comprehensive. Its delivery rate reflects the conditions that Philippine infrastructure delivery has always reflected.
The projects that have been completed are real and visible: road segments, bridge approaches, provincial airport improvements, water system extensions. The projects that are behind schedule are also real and their delays reflect the same causes that delayed the equivalent projects under previous administrations: right-of-way acquisition, contractor financial difficulties, design modifications, and the specific procurement process that produces the winning bid and the contractor whose capacity to deliver does not always match the bid they submitted.
The Political Economy of Infrastructure Branding
Each Philippine administration brands its infrastructure programme because infrastructure investment is the most visible form of government economic activity and the most politically legible. Roads and bridges can be photographed with ribbons and officials. Budget allocations cannot. The gap between the branded programme and the actual delivery is the gap that satire has always occupied in Philippine governance commentary, because the gap is real and documented and consistent across administrations regardless of the brand name attached to it. Managing infrastructure delivery requires solving the procurement and implementation challenges that the branding does not address; official programmes for things that don’t always work are a universal governance feature. Build Better More is building some things better. The gap between the list and the completions remains where it has always been.