MANILA – Former budget secretary Benjamin Diokno on Monday gave his assessment of President Aquino’s first three years in office, saying the President has led the way in promoting good governance but must do more to fast-track infrastructure projects. Speaking to ANC’s Headstart, Diokno noted that “headline GDP growth is more or less on target for the last 2 years.” “Other than that, there’s good governance. No doubt Aquino is honest but I have some doubts with the regulators in light of recent developments,” he said. The former budget chief said the Aquino administration has a lot of catching up to do with public infrastructure because it has direct impact on enployment. He said he is advocating spending at least P500 billion a year or approximately 5% of gross domestic product, instead of the current P250 billion. He, however, noted that one reason why SocioEconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan is not aggressive on spending is because he does not want to raise taxes. He noted that tax collection as a percentage of GDP is about 11.9% as of the first quarter of 2013, which is low by international standards. “He doesn’t have to raise taxes now because the economy is still weak but he will have to put the tax system in order so that 2 years from now, the new taxes can go in effect. I am not advocating new taxes now because it is easy to finance government projects by simply borrowing domestically. The interest rates are very low. I have not seen interest rates like this in my lifetime, so it is so easy to argue to use the golden rule. The ROR on a projects is say 25%, cost of borrowing is 5%. It’s a no-brainer. Go for it,” he said. Diokno said the focus of the Aquino government should be on small, quick disbursing projects nationwide such as construction of classrooms and farm-to-market roads. He said the focus should be less on the public-private partnerships since it is too slow. He also said the government should focus on solving Metro Manila’s traffic problem, noting that the daily economic cost of traffic is now at P2.4 billion. “Ang sabi ko diyan - nakita ni Presidente Aquino yung trees but missed the forest. The problem is right here in Metro Manila, the traffic in Metro Manila which affects 12 million Filipinos. Ang estimate ng JICA diyan ang daily economic cost is 2.4 billion pesos. On an annual basis that is 876 billion pesos or about 8 percent of GDP. He should pay attention to the roads in Metro Manila. Unahin muna natin yun,” he said. For his part, PCOO Secretary Sonny Coloma said the administration has overall financial parameters that it follows. He noted that the government is not using just one modality in implementing infrastructure projects. He also said one reason for the traffic problem in Metro Manila is because there are too many vehicles. He said Metro Manila has 60% of registered motored vehicles and less than 20% of the roads.