Philippine Urban Infrastructure: Looking Back and Looking Forward

Infrastructure consists of transportation, communications, water supply, wastewater treatment and disposal, drainage, solid wastes management, and energy. This short review focuses on urban infrastructure, its state, issues, and challenges in the megacities of the Philippines, namely, Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Metro Davao. In terms of transportation, the major cities have been experiencing worsening transport and traffic problems resulting in high rates of traffic accidents and air pollution. In communications, although the liberalization policy of communications allowed more players that provide all types of communication services, the country’s communication, suffers from low internet speed, high infrastructure cost, outdated law, unsatisfactory service, and hackers. Problems for water supply include lack of water supply, high rates of non-revenue water, and increasing demand due to population growth and requirements of agriculture, business, and industrial establishments. Water-related problems are handling of wastewater, drainage, and flooding. On the other hand, solid wastes volume increases with increasing population and industrialization. Strategies to address the problems and challenges caused by rapid urbanization include institutional reforms to create multiple growth centers, improve public transport system and services so that many more people will use it, address the widening water supply/demand gap through water conservation, watershed management, rainwater harnessing, and expansion of the water supply system. To address the widening water supply/demand gap, water conservation, watershed management, rainwater harnessing, and expansion of the water supply system need to be careful, encompassing plan of action and implementation. Communications problems require expanding market liberalization, evaluating policy structures, review of licensing schemes among others.  For solid waste management, the government‘s overall policy is shown in the National Solid Waste Management (NSWM) Framework with the key words: avoid, reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, treatment, and residues management.

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