Project Background
DPWH is the highest administrative agency responsible for the construction and maintenance/management of highways, bridges and other infrastructures in the Republic of the Philippines.
As of February 2014, the present total length of roads in the Philippines is 216,612 km composed of national roads (32,227 km), provincial roads (31,620 km), city/municipal roads (31,063 km), and the barangay roads/others (121,702 km). The proportion of paved roads is about 83% and the remaining 17 % is still unpaved. Although surface conditions of the national roads have been improved year by year, about 24% of the paved roads still need repair and rehabilitation and steady implementation of continuous repair/rehabilitation of the national roads is required. On the other hand, the total number of bridges in the Philippines as of February 2015 is 8,131 which consist of 7,922 permanent bridges(6,861 concrete and 1,061 steel ones) and 209 temporary bridges (170 bailey and 39 timber ones).
The Philippine Development Plan (2011-2016) sets “development of road and bridge infrastructure” as one of prioritized areas since it will reduce transportation costs and revitalize economic activities. In addition, the Medium-Term Program (2011-2016) prepared by DPWH pledged that remaining unpaved roads shall be paved, all temporary bridges shall be replaced by permanent ones and strengthening of the maintenance management of the roads and bridges as to the highest priority.
The JICA’s Technical Cooperation Projects for the "Improvement of Quality Management for Highway and Bridge Construction and Maintenance Phase-I (February 2007 - February 2010) and Phase-II (October 2011 – September 2014)” were implemented.
Under the above-mentioned Phase-I and Phase-II, technology transfer to counterpart engineers of the Central Office, model 3 Regional Offices [CAR (Cordillera Administrative Region), VII, and XI] and their DEOs was carried out through preparing related manuals/guidelines and conducting seminars/inspection, OJTs, and pilot projects on road slope stability and bridge repair were implemented in these 3 ROs. As a result, it was confirmed that capability of these ROs/DEOs on road and bridge maintenance management was highly enhanced. However, the capacity enhancement of the DPWH as a whole remained an issue to be realized. The Government of the Republic of the Philippines requested JICA to assist implementing the subsequent project to these projects.
After a series of discussions between DPWH and JICA, this project was decided to be started as the third phase of the above-mentioned project, namely JICA Technical Cooperation Project for the "Improvement of Quality Management for Highway and Bridge Construction and Maintenance, Phase-III", hereinafter referred to as "the Project" and/or "TCP-III".
Considering the above-mentioned background, the framework of the project was agreed and it includes activities in DPWH Central Office and all regions for improvement of road and bridge maintenance and enhancement of capabilities of DPWH engineers as well as the previous project.
Project Objectives
This Project aims to improve road and bridge maintenance management works of DPWH through i)enhancing capability of concerned engineers of all ROs/DEOs on maintenance management of roads and bridges (including special bridges) and ii) developing database system to be utilized for road and bridge maintenance management, thereby contributing to improvement of conditions of roads and by DPWH.