THE bidding for the privatization of services at Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) yesterday had a high turnout with seven pre-qualified bidders in attendance.
The seven bidders are: the airport consortium of Manuel V. Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific Investment Corp. (MPIC) and John Gokongwei’s JG Summit Airport Holdings Inc.; AAA Airport Partners led by the consortium of Aboitiz Group and Ayala Corp.; Filinvest Land Inc.-Changi Airports International (CAI) Consortium; Premier Airport Group, a consortium of SM Investments Corp. and Flughafen Zurich AG; GMR Infrastructure Limited-Megawide Consortium; San Miguel and Incheon Airport Consortium; and First Philippine Airports, a consortium of the Lopez Group and the Wellington International Airport of New Zealand.
Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) spokesman Michael Arthur Sagcal said the agency is evaluating the technical proposals submitted by the participating bidders between.
Results of the evaluation of the technical proposals will be released on Dec. 18.
Award
DOTC will open the financial proposals of the bidders on Dec. 19, 2013 while the notice of award and issuance of results of the financial proposal will be on Jan. 14, 2014.
The submission of port-award requirements will be on Feb. 3, 2014, while the signing of concession agreement will be on Feb. 15, 2014.
“The high turnout is proof that investors are confident in our PPP (Public-Private Partnership) program. We want to sustain the momentum from this project to the next ones in our pipeline,” Sagcal said in a statement.
The MCIA is the first project in the PPP program of the Aquino administration.
Some sectors, however, are not happy with the development.
Kadamay Sugbo chair Ramie Inopiquez urged Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III, a member of the MCIA Authority Board, to hold a public hearing to determine how Cebuanos view the project.
Hearing
“Public hearing is important because a vital facility will be turned over by the government to a private firm. This airport will be converted from service-oriented to profit oriented,” Inopiquez said.
Medellin, Cebu Mayor Ricardo Ramirez said it is “insensitive” on the part of MCIAA Board and the DOTC to push through with the privatization of airport amid the devastation in the Visayas following an earthquake and typhoon Yolanda.
“Time and again it has been experienced that privatization only brings prices higher,” Ramirez said.
Jaime Paglinawan, chairman of Bayan Bisayas, said that the government has not learned a lesson from privatization. “They privatize the assets of Napocor (National Power Corp.) leading to high power rates. The government privatized Petron that led to the cartel of multi-national oil companies,” he added.
Terminal
According to the PPP Partnership Center website, the MCIA project also involves the construction of a new world-class passenger terminal building with a capacity of about 8 million passengers per year.
Aside from the MCIA project, DOTC also held a bidding last week for the P1.72 billion Automatic Fare Collection System (AFCS) project.
The DOTC also announced that the bidding process for the P64.9 billion Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1 Cavite Extension (LRT-1 Cavex) PPP project will begin next week. (Sunnex)