The Philippines will no longer seek financial aid from China for a package of ambitious railway projects, the transportation secretary said, adding that officials were confident the projects could move ahead with funding from interested sources.
China had been slated to build two of the rail lines on the main Philippine island of Luzon and the third on southern Mindanao island, officials said.
The Marcos administration announced the decision to drop the Chinese loans amid tensions between Manila and Beijing in the South China Sea and days after a pair of minor collisions in disputed waters between ships and boats from both nations.
Philippine Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said the territorial tensions were not tied to this decision.
“We have three projects that won’t be funded by the Chinese government anymore. We can’t wait forever and it seems like China isn’t that interested anymore,” Bautista told a forum of German and Philippine businessmen in the financial district of Makati on Wednesday. “So, our government is looking for other sources of funding.”
The projects, carrying an estimated total cost of U.S. $4.9 billion, were part of the “Build, Build, Build” program, which former President Rodrigo Duterte had promoted as an offshoot of his administration’s friendly policy toward China.
Bautista identified the projects as a 380-km (236-mile) railway from Laguna province, south of Manila, to Bicol province, on the southern end of Luzon; a 71-km (44-mile) railway to connect the Subic Bay Freeport Zone to the Clark Freeport Zone; and the first phase of the Mindanao Railway Project. For decades until the 1990s, Subic Bay and Clark Freeport Zones housed U.S. military bases.
While Chinese firms along with Philippine workers were to construct the rail projects, new contractors would be determined once funding is secured from other nations and sources, officials said.
Less than a month after Duterte left office in mid-2022, Ernesto Pernia, who had served as his socioeconomic planning secretary, said the Philippines would be wise to drop the three Chinese-backed
projects.
“Much better to deal with ODA with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the U.S. and the E.U.,” Pernia told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news outlet, at the time while using an acronym for official development assistance. Source: RFA
