Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike

is a proposed expressway in the Philippines that will start from the coastal area of Laguna de
Bay from Taguig in Metro Manila to Calamba and Los Baos in Laguna.

The project will involve the construction of a 47-kilometre-long (29 mi), six-lane dike including
bridges, pumping stations and ancillary flood gates.

The project also involve reclamation of 700 hectares west of and abutting the expressway-dike,
separated from the shoreline by a 100-150 meter channel in Taguig and Muntinlupa.

The project aims to provide a high-standard highway that will speed up traffic between the southern
part of Metro Manila and Laguna, as well as a dike that would mitigate flooding in the western
coastal communities along Laguna Lake.

The expressway will cost an estimated PHP36.74 billion or US$854.42 million. When constructed,
it is expected to ease traffic congestion along Muntinlupa and Calamba area, and to serve as flood
control measure for communities on the western shore of Laguna de Bay.

Route Information of the project

Proposed Route
The route alignment starts from Bicutan, Taguig connecting to the proposed C-6 Expressway Road Project.
It traverses southwards passing the city boundaries of Taguig, Paraaque and Muntinlupa in the southern
part of Metro Manila and then continues further south passing the cities of San Pedro, Bian, Santa
Rosa, Cabuyao, Calamba and ends up at Los Baos in Laguna, near its boundary with Bay.
The construction of the expressway dike is proposed to involve two sections:
1. from Bicutan to Calamba; and
2. from Calamba to Los Baos.
The project details for the Expressway Dike as of October 2013 indicated plans for a 41.54-kilometre-long
(25.81 mi), four-lane dike, but the official announcement of the approved project in June 2014 indicated that
it would be 47-kilometre-long (29 mi), and have six-lanes.

Proposed parallel eastern shore projects

While the expressway dike hopes to alleviate flooding on the south-western shore of Laguna de Bay,
officials and planners have acknowledged that there is still a need to cope with the excess water volume in
the lake itself, with urban planner Felino Palafox describing the situation as "like having a toilet without a
flush.
As the expressway dike would alleviate flooding in the more metropolitan western shore of the lake, similar
projects have been proposed which would prevent the additional water volume from causing larger-scale
flooding on the eastern shore, which includes the coastal towns of Rizal province and of eastern Laguna
Province.
These projects include the construction of a "Pacific spillway" from the lake to the east coast of Luzon,
which would drain excess water from the eastern part of the lake, and the construction of the
revamped Laiban Dam and Kaliwa Low Dams in Tanay, Rizal, which is projected to reduce the water
flowing into the northeastern portion of the lake.
However, construction of the Pacific Spillway has been identified by the DPWH as a low priority, while the
construction of the Tanay dams has been controversial, such that only the construction of the Kaliwa Low
Dam has been approved as of the second quarter of 2014.

Pacific Spillway Proposal

The project most directly intended to prevent the water volume displaced by the expressway dike from
causing larger-scale flooding on the eastern shore of the lake is the construction of a 20 Kilometer "Pacific
spillway." This would take the form of either a tunnel or an open canal which would begin at the eastern
shore of Laguna de Bay, cross the Sierra Mountains, and release water into the Pacific Ocean somewhere
along the shore of Infanta.

August 2012 Monsoon Floods and Initial Conception

The idea of "a dike around Laguna" to serve as "a flood-control system meant to protect flood-prone areas
along Laguna Lake" was first seriously raised in 2012, in reaction to the damage wrought by the 2012
Metro Manila Monsoon Floods. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) was tasked to take
on the project.

Early response from activist groups

Early opposition to the project, upon its suggestion in 2012, mostly focused on the displacement of
fisherfolk from the shores of Laguna de Bay, and on the fact that large corporations would benefit so much
from the reclamation, with activist fisherfolk groups like PAMALAKAYA (the National Federation of Small
Fisherfolk Organization in the Philippines) protesting the construction of "high-rise condominium buildings,
big-budget housing units, world-class hotels and ecotourism centers in areas which will be vacated by the
lake-shore families."
PAMALAKAYA also expressed skepticism regarding the intent of the project, saying they had doubts such a
project would really solve flooding in Metro Manila and low-lying areas around the lake, or provide a major
water catchbasin catering to the business needs of water and electric utilities.

August 2013 Typhoon Maring and public announcement of "road-ring dike"

In the aftermath of the floods brought about by Typhoon Maring in August 2013, President Benigno Aquino
III made plans for the dike project public.
Media outlets referred to the proposal as a "megadike" but Public Works Secretary Rogelio
Singson corrected this saying that it was to be called a "road-ring dike." Singson also said that they did not
have a timeline for the project yet, as they were still completing the feasibility study and coming up with a
detailed design of the project.
There was some controversy about whether or not the dike had indeed been a government priority prior to
the 2013 floods. The government had released the Flood Management Master Plan for Metro Manila and
Surrounding Areas in June that year, and the announcement had not included the dike as one of the "11
recommended shortlisted structural mitigation measures", listing it merely as an "optimum solution in
solving the flooding situation in the Laguna lake-shore area.

May 2014 rejection due to environmental impact questions (Constraint)

The Expressway Dike Project was initially slated for approval by the National Economic and Development
Authority (NEDA) in its May 29, 2014 Board meeting, with the inter-agency Investment Coordination
Committee of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA-ICC) endorsing the project for final
approval by the board.
It was initially rejected at that meeting, however, when some of the board members had questions about
some of the environmental and technical aspects of the project.
The DPWH later announced that it would make the "necessary clarification" regarding the project's
environmental impact, specifying that concerns raised in the meeting had included "the height of the dike,
the construction of water circulation, the separation between the low-lying communities and the new
islands that would be created as part of the reclamation, the establishment of pumping stations, among
others." The department indicated that they hoped to get final approval for the project and be able to bid the
project out "toward the end of 2014 or in the first quarter of 2015"

June 2014 Approval

In June 2014, the Expressway Dike Project was finally green-lighted for implementation.
The NEDA board deferred on the project again during their June 2, 2014 meeting, requesting the DPWH to
prepare and submit materials to be presented at the June 19 meeting, specifying the DPWH's responses to
specific questions raised by the NEDA board.
The project was finally approved during the June 19, 2014 board meeting, in which the board also
approved the operation and maintenance of the Bohol Airport and of Laguindingan Airport in Misamis
Oriental. At P123-billion, this made the Expressway Dike the biggest PPP project under the administration
of President Aquino.
Public-Private Partnership Center Cosette Canilao told Reuters that the auction process "will start within the
next quarter."
Construction of the expressway dike was then slated to begin in "late 2015" and to finish in 2021.
On July 28, 2014, President Aquino cited the expressway dike in his 5th State of the Nation Address as one
of the infrastructure projects approved by his administration as part of its disaster preparedness efforts.