BUS MODERNIZATION | Marcos says Davao bus project will be ‘template’ for public transport in other cities

February 7, 2024 , 10:37 PM

By Clarist Zablan

(February 7, 2024) – President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. touted the bus modernization project in Davao City as a “game-changer” that could serve as a “template” to develop public transport in other urban centers in the country.

Marcos was present in Davao City for the ceremonial signing of the civil works contract for the P73.38-billion Davao Public Transport Modernization Project (DPTMP), which aims to create a 672-km bus route network in the city.

“Once completed, this is certainly, as they call it, a game-changer,” Marcos said about the project in a public address. “This project will become the template for public transport systems in other cities in our country.”

This marked the first time the president visited Davao, the bailiwick of the Dutertes, since his verbal spat with his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte that political observers viewed to be a sign of widening cracks in the “UniTeam” alliance.

Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio, the former president’s daughter, attended the event. Her brother, Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, was conspicuously absent.

Before this, the mayor had urged Marcos to resign from his post if he did not have “love and aspirations” for the country. Duterte-Carpio explained that he was only trying to defend her from what she described as “despicable treatment” that she had received from “some sectors within the circle of the President.”

On the DPTMP, which is funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the project is planned to include the development of 29 interconnected routes served by 400 articulated battery electric buses and over 500 diesel buses.

The Marcos government estimated the project will serve about 800,000 passengers every day and will generate 3,000 jobs in the country’s third largest city.

Coincidentally, Transport Secretary Jaime Bautista earlier said the Marcos administration has been looking for an alternative funding source for Phase 1 of the Mindanao Railway Project (MRP) after the government dropped China as funding source of the project.

Phase 1 of the project is composed of eight stations stretching 100.2 km from Tagum City, Davao del Norte, to Digos City, Davao del Sur.

Marcos stressed the need for “climate-resilient” infrastructure projects that accounts for the circumstances in the future.

“The infrastructure we are building must not only wipe out arrears of the past, but must respond to the needs of the present, and anticipate circumstances in the future. We must build while bearing in mind the worst the future will bring, of the earth getting hotter, getting wetter, and not on outdated assumptions that no longer apply,” he said.

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