ILOILO CITY — The country is suffering an annual economic loss of around P1.277 trillion due to the perennial problem of traffic congestion, a top official of the Department of Transportation (DoTr) said. Felicisimo Pangilinan Jr., director of the planning service of DoTr, said in the National Capital Region, the loss was P3.5 billion a day, and in the neighboring provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna and Cavite, the loss was P2.4 billion a day or P876 billion a year based on the country's 2017 economy. Compared to the country's 2019 gross domestic product, traffic congestion could cost P16.534 billion. It could also equate to P489 billion compared to the 2019 foreign direct investment and P16.705 billion in the December 2019 stock market capitalization. DoTr data indicates that the trillion-peso economic loss could fund the construction of at least 1 million public school classrooms and 2,150 provincial hospitals and the irrigation of 4.3 million hectares of farmland. Pangilinan said traffic congestion was a problem in Metro Manila and affected major metropolitan cities, including Iloilo. He added that the DoTr had acknowledged the issue and was working to address the various challenges facing the country's transport sector. "We are trying to address the issue of the annual direct economic cause of traffic congestion.... We are looking at it. We are recognizing the problem. We are not hiding the problem," he said, speaking to an export business forum in this city on Friday, September 13. Pangilinan said the DoTr was modernizing the country's transportation infrastructure through a comprehensive program that includes aviation, maritime, railways and roads. The agency had approved investment projects totaling P377.71 billion from November 2022 to August this year. The aviation sector has seen investments totaling P9.26 billion, which include the new Dumaguete City port, solicited private-public partnerships for the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and the Bohol-Panglao International Airport. The maritime sector received an investment of P29.88 billion, the railways sector P38.01 billion, and the road sector P102.7 billion. Since July 2022, Pangilinan said the DoTr had completed projects in 42 airports and 28 seaports. "The transport initiative that we do does not only address one sector; it almost covers the whole of society. It impacts everybody," he said. Read The Rest at :