MANILA, Philippines – Businessman Regis Romero II is making another bid for the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Cavite extension project.
Cosette Canilao, executive director of the Public Private Partnership Center, said Romero’s Ecorail Transport Service has bought documents for the LRT Cavite extension project.
“The new entity that bought LRT-1 bid documents is Ecorail,” Canilao said in a text message to reporters.
Last October 2012, Ecorail was disqualified by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) bids and awards committee after failing to submit 10 copies of pre-qualification documents on time. Ecorail had tied up with China Railway Construction Corp. for the project.
Ecorail had also filed a petition for certiorari, prohibition, and mandamus, with application for the issuance of a temporary restraining order and writ of preliminary injunction against the DOTC and the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) before the Supreme Court to stop the bidding process.
The LRT-1 Cavite extension project has attracted interest from the country’s top companies, such as Ayala Corp. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp.’s Light Rail Manila Consortium; SMC Infra Resources; DMCI Holdings, Megawide Construction, as well as Malaysia’s MTD Philippines and Spain’s Globalvia.
Interested bidders for the LRT 1 Cavite extension project have until April 28 to submit bids.
The DOTC is expediting the bidding process for the project by adopting a single-stage bidding process. It also improved certain economic terms in the concession after the bidding for the project failed last August.
The improvements include government absorbing the obligation to pay real property taxes, ensuring the integrity of the facility’s structure for a 2-year period, permitting a 5 percent fare increase upon completion of the project, and allowing the submission of negative bids.
The P65 billion LRT-1 Cavex project involves the construction of an 11.7-kilometer southward extension from the Baclaran station to Bacoor, Cavite, and the construction of 8 new stations, plus more stations in Parañaque City, Las Piñas City, and Cavite in the future.
12 February 2014
