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On pending port projects: Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, during Monday’s virtual consultative meeting of Finance Subcommittee K October 25, 2021, on the proposed 2022 budget of the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and its attached agencies, notes that it has been five years and the present administration is about to bow out and yet, there has not much major improvement of port facilities nationwide. Drilon stressed that port development and port facilities are major factors in economic development because a good port increases commerce and trade. The minority leader observed that the DOTr poured out major investments in the ports of Manila and Cebu but not in other provinces, citing the planned privatization of Iloilo International Commercial Port facility four or five years ago, with International Container Terminal Services Incorporated (ICTSI) committing to invest P8 billion to improve the infrastructure facility. Transportation Sec. Arturo Tugade clarified that 450 seaports across the country had already been established or developed in the past five years. Tugade also said the improvement of the Iloilo commercial port complex is ongoing and that the unsolicited proposal of the ICTSI is still with the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA). (Screen grab/Senate PRIB)