Marcos approves his first PPP project

Without specifying, the official said the reasons the importers mentioned were "unreasonable, illogical."

"We will talk again with the farmers and importers to bring down the prices to benefit the consumers," he added.

Earlier, Estoperez said the retail prices of onions will go down between P100 and P120 per kilo because of imported bulbs flooding the markets.

DA monitoring data said the retail price of imported red onions ranged between P180 and P220 per kilo; and imported white onions, between P180 and P250 per kilo.

The retail price of local red onions ranged from P200 to P330 per kilo and local white onions between P170 and P300 per kilo.

At Mega Q Mart in Quezon City, the retail price of onions ranged from P200 to 250 per kilo.

Onions were sold for as high as P330 per kilo at New Las Piñas City Public Market in Las Piñas.

The DA said the country's annual onions consumption is estimated at 260,000 MT or 21,679 MT monthly.

At least 100,000 MT of onions were presumably wasted because of a lack of cold storage.

In 2022, a total of 283,172 MT of red and yellow onions, as well as shallots, were harvested locally from 29,728 hectares of production area. g

by Catherine S. Valente ManilaTimes.net

PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday, February 2 approved the rollout of the University of the Philippines (UP)-Philippine General Hospital (PGH) Cancer Center, his administration's first Public Private Partnership (PPP) project.

The President, who heads the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board, gave the nod for the construction of a P6-billion, 300bed capacity hospital during a meeting in Malacañang on Thursday, February 2.

In a statement, Presidential Communications Secretary Cheloy Garafil said the project aims to modernize the country's health infrastructure on oncology services and cancer care.

"The project aims to establish UP-PGH's dedicated cancer hospital that will modernize its health infrastructure and offer comprehensive, high-quality, and affordable oncology services towards enhancing the country's health service quality and capacity for cancer care," Garafil said.

Garafil said the project will be solicited from the public through the submission of a bid and will be structured as a 30-year Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) arrangement under the BOT Law.

She said the BOT approach "is an agreement that grants a concession to a private partner to finance, build, and operate a project over a fixed term."

"After that period, the project is returned to the public entity that originally granted the concession," she added.

The Cancer Center, with a lot area of 3,000 square meters, will be located within the UP-PGH campus in Manila.

The entire building will have a capacity of 300 beds (150 charity beds for the UP-PGH Area and 150 private beds for the Private Area), 15 to 20 floors, 350 parking spaces, 1,000 square meter of commercial space, and an area for three linear accelerators bunkers.

The hospital will provide a full range of cancer treatments, including radio oncology (radiotherapy), imaging, medical oncology, and support for the UP-PGH's teaching and research activities.

The UP-PGH's private partner will design, engineer, construct, and commission the entire new hospital building, procure, maintain, and provide for the periodic replacement of medical and non-medical equipment. It will also maintain all nonclinical services for the entire hospital building, operate relevant commercial activities, provide clinical services to private-paying patients in the private area, and assume all associated costs of clinical manpower, drugs, and consumables.

UP-PGH, on the other hand, will provide the site at no cost, transfer the existing equipment to the Cancer Institute, provide clinical services to non-paying charity patients in the UP-PGH area, assume all associated costs of clinical manpower, drugs, and consumables, as well as undertake clinical teaching and research. g