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With nearly 50 percent of the Marcos administration’s infrastructure flagship projects (IFPs) funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Japan remained the Philippines’ largest source of official development assistance (ODA) last year.
According to JICA Philippines, the official ODA executing agency of Japan, it supported 82 active loans and grants in 2024. These covered various sectors such as transport infrastructure, governance, disaster risk reduction, and regional peacebuilding.
In particular, JICA is the top financier of the country’s IFPs, providing 47.7 percent of total ODA funding for these initiatives.
Once completed, the Metro Manila Subway Project will cut travel time from Quezon City to the airport to 40 minutes from over an hour. This eases traffic for commuters, reduces transport costs for low-income workers, and helps lower air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, said JICA.
The North-South Commuter Railway (NSCR), running from Clark to Laguna, is expected to serve about 800,000 passengers daily and provide small business owners and informal vendors with faster market access and lower logistics costs.
Further, the Davao City Bypass is seen to slash travel time for farmers and traders delivering produce to the city, reducing spoilage and increasing incomes in rural areas.
Lastly, the Road Network Development Project in Mindanao’s conflict-affected provinces is expected to improve access to schools, hospitals, and livelihoods, reconnecting isolated barangays to municipal centers and trade routes.
“These large-scale transport projects are part of a broader push to address persistent mobility and regional development challenges in the country,” JICA Philippines said in an Aug. 8 statement.
Based on the 2024 ODA Portfolio Review Report released by the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) last week, Japan contributed $13.23 billion, or around ₱756 billion, to the country’s ODA portfolio.
This accounted for a third or 33.4 percent of last year’s ODA-funded projects totaling $39.6 billion, six-percent higher than the previous year’s $37.3 billion.
The Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) followed closely at $11.05 billion, or 27.9 percent of the total value. The Washington-based World Bank ranked third with $8.64 billion (21.8 percent), while the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) placed fourth at $2.38 billion (six percent).
Ranking fifth, South Korea provided $1.34 billion (3.4 percent), while other ODA partners accounted for $2.96 billion (7.5 percent).
DEPDev noted that the increase was driven by new infrastructure loan commitments, with nine of the 17 new loans worth $8.2 billion supporting the government’s IFPs.
Projects that benefited from the new loan commitments include the Laguna Lakeshore Road Network (LLRN), Dalton Pass East Alignment Phase I, additional funding for the Bataan-Cavite Interlink Bridge and Metro Manila Subway, and the infrastructure for safer and resilient schools.
Transport and connectivity infrastructure made up the largest share of the portfolio, totaling $42.8 billion or 62.7 percent, with 120 loans and grants.
To recall, six of the 45 projects tagged as problematic by DEPDev in 2023 have been cleared from the list of critical-stage projects. The report noted that while resources remained ample, big-ticket infrastructure projects still struggled with implementation, exposing a gap between funding and delivery.
It added that disbursement delays, capacity constraints, and coordination problems still hamper performance, even with expanded support for project preparation and monitoring.
Loan disbursements from active ODA-funded projects hit a post-pandemic high of $7.01 billion in 2024, boosted by full drawdowns of program loans, but project loan releases lagged due to procurement, right-of-way (ROW), and design setbacks.
