The most expensive infrastructure in the Philippines is the kind we never built.
You will not find it as a line item in the GAA. You see it on the road — in diesel burned, hours lost, in cargo that arrives late.
In Mindanao, a farmer loads his vegetables before sunrise and drives for hours over broken roads, knowing part of the harvest will spoil. In Subic, a deepwater port built for global trade has cargo idling because the roads inland cannot keep up. In Bicol, distance is still measured in hours, not kilometers. These are the everyday costs of infrastructure that never came.
The Mindanao Railway Project, the Subic–Clark Railway, and the South Long Haul Railway were three of the projects promised under Build, Build, Build — designed to connect regions, lower logistics costs, and open up the economy beyond Metro Manila. The direction was clear. What failed was continuity.
The shift was not technical. It was political. When our foreign policy turned more cautious toward Beijing, the rail projects financed by Chinese loans went with it. They were not lost to a market downturn. They were lost to a foreign policy choice.
In 2023, the Department of Finance confirmed that ODA loan negotiations with China “did not progress as expected” and were ultimately discontinued. A 2025 Lowy Institute analysis called the cancellation “more political than fiscal” — three rail projects worth roughly $5 billion in concessional loans, dropped in 2023.
China did not stop building rail in Asia. It built it everywhere except here.
Indonesia opened the $7 billion Jakarta–Bandung high-speed line in October 2023, cutting a three-hour drive to forty-five minutes. Laos opened the $6 billion Boten–Vientiane line in 2021, linking it directly to Kunming. Malaysia’s $17 billion East Coast Rail Link is 80 percent complete. Thailand’s Bangkok–Nong Khai line targets 2028. Vietnam approved fresh Chinese rail loans in early 2025.
That is the regional map. The Philippines is the country that walked away.
Look at who actually finances rail in this country. Japan, through JICA. China, through its state banks. South Korea, in pieces. The Asian Development Bank.
Four names. Not forty, not fourteen. Four.
And we just shortened it to three.
The United States is not on that list. A 2024 U.S. Government Accountability Office report found that China outspent the United States nearly nine to one on overseas infrastructure between 2013 and 2021 — $679 billion against $76 billion across the same sectors — with U.S. assistance routed “generally for private entities,” not sovereign rail.
Washington carries heavy weight in our security and defense — EDCA sites expanded, joint exercises scaled up, basing access widened — but it does not fund our rails. We keep blurring that distinction at our cost.
Why is the government so selective? Why does foreign policy decide which trains get built?
Strategic risk in the West Philippine Sea is real. National interest is real. But Filipinos have waited for working rail for decades. Decades.
Manila–Bicol has been a draft across administrations. Mindanao has been promised rail since the 1990s. Subic–Clark has been studied, signed, restudied, and stalled across three presidents.
And underneath all of this is the harder truth. There will always be a more powerful force dictating the terms. Big brother is Washington — and big brother will never allow us to choose freely. We will always be the little brother.
Hanggang kailan?
A farmer in Mindanao loses part of his harvest every season. A worker in Bicol burns ten hours a week on buses and jeepneys. A trader in Subic watches cargo idle. None of them care which capital signs the loan. They care that something gets built — and that the government stops treating their daily lives as a bargaining chip.
A 2020 World Bank Philippines Economic Update found that logistics costs still eat about “27 percent of sales for firms.” Every year of delay deepens that drag.
Infrastructure has to be protected from the swings of geopolitics — the cost of starting over every six years is too high.
The Asian Development Bank, in its 2021 Asian Development Outlook, said it plainly: “sustained infrastructure investment is essential to maintaining growth momentum.”
Railways take years to build. They take longer to decide.
Indonesia rides. Laos rides. Malaysia and Thailand will be riding soon.
We are still asking for permission to start.
That is the cost. We have been paying it for decades. We are paying it now.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are intended to encourage public discussion on governance and national issues. They do not represent any official position of the institutions the author may be affiliated with.
About the Author:
Paul Y. Chua, PhD, holds doctoral degrees in Fiscal Management and Peace and Security, and a master‘s degree in National Security Administration. He has completed executive programs in several countries, specializing in transport, migration, urban planning, and public policy, with emphasis on governance, innovation, and integrity.
