Department of Transportation (DoTr) Secretary Jaime Bautista confirmed on Thursday that the Davao City High Priority Bus System (HPBS) project will push through.
Bautista said DoTr is still on track on the completion of the project, although, the project is facing is facing a Right-Of-Way (ROW) issue against 32 landowners in Davao City.
HPBS is one of the flagship projects of the Build, Build, Build program of the Marcos administration, which is being implemented by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the city government of Davao.
Nestor Kilian S. Tabada of the Office of the Undersecretary for Road and Infrastructure of DoTr, said most of these landowners are private (corporate) and individual families.
HPBS includes the development of public transport terminals, depots, and a driving school as key supporting facilities of the modern service; 1,119 bus stops; and more than 1,000 new bus fleets.
“Minsan yung may ari ng lupa hindi magkasundo sa presyo. It’s a ROW issue but we’re working on it. One of the issues also is the availability of funds for land acquisition that is why we are asking the Congress to give us more funds for the ROW acquisition,” said Bautista at the sidelines of the 1st Mindanao Infrastructure Summit held at the SMX Convention Center in SM Lanang Premier.
HPBS would replace the existing jeepney network with a four-tier (MetroDavao, DavaoInter, DavaoFeeder, and DavaoLocal), 29-route network operating with larger buses (including 18m articulated and 12m bus units), which significantly reduce the number of public transport vehicles on the roadways (reducing PUVs). Small 10m buses will also be introduced.
According to Bautista, as far as the budget is concerned, it’s not really that problematic.
He said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has confirmed its support by providing funding to the project.
Bautista said the project cost is around P70 billion wherein P1.5 billion will be coming from the city government of Davao, around $1 billion from ADB and the balance will be coming from the national government.
“There is also the participation of the national government but it’s not that big amount. The project will be partially supported by the city government of Davao which is a little over P1 billion. As far as the project is concerned it’s a go and we’re on track,” he said.
Bautista said DoTr is in the process of implementing the project and as far as procurement is concerned it has already procured four contract packages.
Bautista is hopeful that this project will start by early next year and will be operational by 2026.
