INTRODUCTION
We are all proud to take part in this ceremony that caps the work of a most productive 9th Congress. For sheer volume alone, RA 8150, more popularly known as the Public Works and Highways Infrastructure Act, is its fitting final accomplishment. This is the first multi-year public works law in the last 30 years.

But more than the number of pages, the law’s greater significance lies in the development opportunities given to all the existing congressional districts, thereby providing all political units — towns, cities, provinces and regions — equitably distributed opportunities for progress in terms of public works, highways and flood control.
INFRASTRUCTURE FOR DEVELOPMENT
This law guarantees the completion of a comprehensive public works and highways infrastructure program within a period of four years.

It institutes, in the medium term, the construction and improvement of vital roads, flood control and other infrastructure. It broadens the country’s physical foundation and boosts our efforts to improve access and productivity and therefore raise the quality of life of our countrymen.

With this law, we now possess a multi-year framework that ensures continuity and coherence in the yearly programming of infrastructure projects funded under the general appropriations acts.

The projects under this law involve a total outlay of p173.5 billion broken down thus: p83 billion for national arterial roads; p33.9 billion for national secondary roads; p25.6 billion for local roads; p15 billion for flood control; and p16 billion for other works.

The aims of this law have been specified as:

1) pave and improve all national arterial roads to international standards;

2) interconnect all municipal centers to the arterial roads through paved secondary roads;

3) interconnect all barangays to their municipal centers through all-weather roads;

4) achieve throughout the country an overall road density of one (1) kilometer per square kilometer of land, which is almost double the present rate of 0.54 kilometers per square kilometer; and,

5) control or decrease the incidence of flooding in major river basins.

This law authorizes us to improve and pave approximately 8,900 kilometers of our national arterial road system. Among the prioritized areas for this system are our regional growth centers including the Northwestern Luzon Quadrangle, Tuguegarao-Ilagan Corridor, Clark and Subic Special Economic Zones, Calabarzon, Marilaque, Naga-Legaspi, Iloilo-Cebu-Tacloban, Davao-General Santos as well as Davao-General Santos and Cagayan de Oro-Iligan Growth Corridors, and other key centers in Mindanao.

Some 5,600 kilometers of national secondary roads will also be improved through this law. In addition, it also provides for the construction or improvement of all-weather roads that will service the people of far-flung barangays.

The law’s flood control component provides for the construction of protective structures such as levees, channels, river walls, revetments and related structures along principal river basins of the country to reduce the losses to life and property that we usually experience due to flooding.

The improved mobility of people, goods and services, will spur agri-industrial productivity and consequently hasten the development of the countryside.

Furthermore, to make sure that all our people can enjoy the benefits of this ambitious national infrastructure multi-year program, the law has provided that all our legislative districts will receive an additional p20 million for infrastructure within the four-year duration of the program.

In the next four years, our people can look forward to intensive efforts to build our highways and anti-flood systems. This early, I would like to call on our local government officials and, of course, our Senators and Congressmen, to inform the citizenry about the importance of this program, especially the benefits they will derive from these projects — safety from floods, mobility and convenience in their travels, and the jobs generated during construction and thereafter.
CLOSING
With the signing of this law, we therefore close the curtain on the 9th Congress which had distinguished itself as the most productive Congress in the history of the Republic, although I do believe that the 10th Congress can do better.

Once again, I wholeheartedly thank the leadership of the House of Representatives and of the Senate for their statesmanship and decisiveness in steering all the important laws to enactment. Their roles were pivotal and could only come from the determination to give our people their very best by ensuring that the country will achieve its vision of sustained prosperity and social justice in the shortest possible time.

I am heartened that a good number of the members of the 9th Congress constitute the 10th Congress, for I am thus assured that the sterling record of the immediate past congress can be duplicated or even surpassed.

In the name of our people and the government, I commend the members of the 9th Congress as well as the new members of our legislative bodies who have been supportive of the passage of the public works act. I especially salute this law’s authors, sponsors and members of the bi-cameral committee for their good work.

You may all rest assured that the executive will match the efforts congress has put into this landmark law for the benefit of our people and the future generations of Filipinos.

Maraming salamat at mabuhay kayong lahat!