Is Megawide in or out?
There’s a brewing controversy surrounding the bidding for the operations and maintenance contract for the Clark International Airport, the country’s second gateway.
Leafing through the 65-page information memorandum for the contract to operate and maintain the gateway, I found a provision which struck me as controversial. It was hard not to see it; it topped the list of legal requirements bidders must meet. “The prospective bidder must not have any stake in any facility operator within the main island of Luzon, or must not hold, whether direct or indirect, a majority equity interest in a concession holder of an international airport in the Philippines,” it said on page 18.
Eight groups are vying for the O&M contract. These are Megawide Construction Corp. together with India’s GMR Infrastructure, Metro Pacific Investment Corp., Filinvest Corp., San Miguel Holdings Corp., Prime Asset Venture, Central Luzon Infrastructure Consultancy Inc., India’s GVK Airport Developers Ltd. and Groupe ADP of France.
If you look at the list, other prospective bidders also have majority stake in other airports.
India’s GVK Airport Developers, for instance, is behind Mumbai’s GVK Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, while Groupe ADP of France owns and operates the international airports in the City of Lights.
San Miguel has the Caticlan Airport, a gateway that services domestic flights.
But it’s only Megawide, operator of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport, that has “a majority equity interest in a concession holder of an international airport in the Philippines.”
With this provision in the O&M memorandum, I wonder — is Megawide in or out?
I also wonder what’s the wisdom behind the provision. Why disqualify a company just because it has a majority stake in another airport? Wouldn’t it be illogical to disqualify companies that have the experience and track record in actually running an airport?
In other countries, operators have multiple airports. Groupe ADP, for instance, is behind all the Parisian international airports: Paris–Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris–Orly Airport, and Paris–Le Bourget Airport.
The state-run Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) has its reasons for sure. Perhaps, it’s to prevent a monopoly in airport operations.
Whatever it is, BCDA has to explain this well to the prospective bidders, especially to Megawide, which at the onset appears to be the only from that would be disqualified because of the provision.
When I asked Megawide officials about it, they simply said they would clarify the matter with BCDA.
In the end, I hope the issue would be resolved, there would be no sleight of hand, and the whole process would be fair for everyone. As I’ve said before, I hope we truly get a world-class airport we truly deserve.
Engineering for a first world Phl
Megawide officials declined to discuss the issue despite my persistence. Instead, they simply shared with me the company’s new tagline.
“We have a new tagline – Engineering for a First World Philippines,” Megawide director Louie Ferrer proudly shared. Sounds good, I thought. “Yes, we would love to entice the Philippines to rally for a First World Philippines,” Ferrer said.
Traffic in NAIA
Going back to airports, I was able to obtain a traffic study related to the proposed expansion of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
According to the independent study, the existing road network and gateways serving NAIA are capable of supporting the proposed expansion of the gateway until 2030.
New road projects that are already in the government’s pipeline can further support the NAIA’s network performance by 11 years to 2043, the study, conducted by WSP Philippines (formerly Parsons Brinckerhoff) showed.
This means that the existing road network and NAIA gateways can fully support the plan of the NAIA Consortium to expand NAIA and to increase passenger capacity to 65 million passengers per annum by 2022.
The NAIA Consortium, comprised of the country’s biggest conglomerates, has submitted an unsolicited proposal to redevelop and operate NAIA for a concession period of 15 years at a cost of roughly P105 billion and expand its annual capacity to 65 million passengers per annum from 31 million at present.
Members of the consortium are the MVP Group’s Metro Pacific Investments Corp., Aboitiz Group’s Aboitiz InfraCapital Inc., Ayala’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., Andrew Tan’s Alliance Global Group Inc., Lucio Tan-led Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp., the Gotianuns’ Filinvest Development Corp. and the Gokongwei Group’s JG Summit Holdings Inc.
“The existing road network and gateways service NAIA are capable of supporting the proposed expansion at Level of Serve E (LOS E) until 2030. LOS E is characterized as traffic reaching its saturation point with slow, but uniform speed of 11 kilometers per hour,” the WPS’ study showed.
The network performance is seen breaching the threshold two years after at 2032.
But the traffic study also showed that the current congestion experienced by the public at the NAIA gateways can greatly be improved “by increasing the capacity through implementing operational change such as reconfiguring the gateway layout to increase the number of checkpoints and installation of vehicle portal scanners to reduce vehicle inspection time and increase vehicle throughput.”
With all the new road projects in the pipeline, the gateway performance is extended by six years to 2036, while the network performance is extended by 11 years to 2043, it said.
It sounds promising and it also means that bulldozing NAIA may not be necessary.
Iris Gonzales’ e-mail address is eyesgonzales@gmail.com.