Changes in Infrastructure Governance Over Three Decades in the Philippines

This chapter presents the changes in infrastructure governance over three decades, in the Philippines with emphasis on the Aquino III and Duterte administrations. Infrastructure governance of the Duterte administration for the second half of this administration since 2019 is also focused on. The chapter analyzes the factors that have shaped infrastructure governance in the Philippines. While infrastructure development has always been one of the center pillars of the socio-economic development agenda, the infrastructure gap in the Philippines has not substantially narrowed over the last three decades. On infrastructure financing, there have been two main areas of reform: (1) improving fiscal space and (2) better utilization of private finance. Faced with high public debt and low revenues, the Government of the Philippines in the last three decades introduced major fiscal reforms to finance development priorities, including public infrastructure. Also, introduction of private finance through PPP has been another major policy measure for development of infrastructure in the Philippines. Although utilization of both the finance and procurement options of public finance and PPP in a more balanced manner is welcome, the dependency on the unsolicited mode of infrastructure development heavily poses some concern.