It honestly depends on many factors. The Philippines could lead with more projects, but start to dwindle down in progress, and Indonesia could take the lead and have more buildings be constructed in absence of the Philippines ’ progress. There are honestly so many possible scenarios that could play out.
Both countries can propose thousands of projects but in the end, have only 3 be actually made. If I had to be honest, I don’t really know all of Indonesia’s upcoming projects, since I follow mostly the Philippines’ infrastructural progress.
I’ll try to answer the question, from a Filipino’s perspective, and if I get anything wrong, please kindly correct me in the comments below.
Indonesia is mainly spending its money on transportation like MRT’s, LRT’s, and toll roads. Whereas the Philippines is mainly focusing on creating resorts/high-end class buildings, and a few transportation projects as well. Indonesia’s largest project is the $33.7 billion Transit system in Sumatra and the $6 billion Jakarta-Bandung HSR, which equally adds up to $391. Taking away from $430 billion in USD that the country plans to use for their projects that span all the way up to the year 2024.
In all honesty, Indonesia has projects that focus more on Transportation, Irrigation, communication, Water, and electricity supply. Things like replacing pipelines in Surabaya, so the residents of the city can get cleaner water, to building more power plants In more regions so that people can get electricity to their homes.
Its small progress, but it makes a big impact. And I appreciate and acknowledge the country’s small progressive steps it's taking for their people, even though it isn’t huge or massive projects yet, it gives a better quality of life for the people that live there. And I personally think that that is what matters the most.
In contrast to the Philippines- It has been announcing many structural projects like new airports, apartments, resorts, malls, and cities. Most projects are accepted from President Dutuerte’s BUILD! BUILD! BUILD! program. It's cool, but I do wish they’d have more projects that take care of the poverty in the country (they have a few) before building these grand buildings that are mostly aimed at targetting the rich people and tourists.
On the bright side, the Philippines ’ new projects will lessen the country’s unemployment rate, and bring it closer to the upper-middle class within a few years. More projects have focused on the environment, and noticing how polluted some places are in the country has awakened Filipino scientists and engineers to work on creating more eco-friendly building materials and using bio-degradable things in their creations.
My answer: So-104 infrastructural projects are due, for the Philippines, and most have already been completed. That's a lot I feel compared to a few projects I found online for Indonesia. It would be logical to say that Indonesia has more since it's bigger by landmass.
But the question asks for the number of projects and not the cost price of it. Even after several searches online, I still couldn’t find a lot of Indonesia’s projects.- Which leads me to my answer- The Philippines has more infrastructural projects underway.
My critiques: The problem is, Indonesia had a later start in infrastructure development, while the Philippines had a slow pace in infrastructural progress. Indonesia has projects that focus on the well-being of its people and ease in daily life by means and advancements of transportation.
The Philippines has more flagship infrastructures, that kind of cater to rich Filipinos and foreign investors. But personally, I believe that what we really need is more focus on the people, I think that the Philippines needs to stop trying to build magnificent structures to impress people, and focus on building their economy from the ground up.
Because although I think, from all the information I gathered, that the Philippines has more infrastructural projects underway, the balance between the Filipino people and foreign investors is 50/50. I've looked at some buildings, that are in construction in the Philippines, and I sometimes thought- “Why would you build such a huge leisure building if 18.7% of the Philippine population is still in poverty?”
That's in comparison to Indonesia, the 4th most populated country in the world that only has a 9.7% poverty rate. I feel like if nothing is done about this, the inequality gap could get bigger, where the rich live lavish lives while the poor still haven’t found jobs.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with foreign investments, but do you really want foreign investors to be one of the reasons why your country’s economy is doing well? I feel that the Philippines needs to ease up on foreign investments and be more independent so that THEIR own people can run THEIR own country. And not have to heavily depend on investments from other countries
-So to conclude, I think that the Philippines has more projects underway, but I appreciate Indonesia’s process of development. Both the Philippines and Indonesia are close neighbors, geographically, and speaking in terms of relation. As far as I'm concerned both have a bright future.
-My best regards to the Indonesians.
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