Business World, 16 December 2014
By Chrisee Jalyssa V. Dela Paz
THE NEW TERMS for the contract to build and operate the 47.018-kilometer Cavite-Laguna Expressway (CALAX) for P35.42 billion under the government’s public-private partnership (PPP) program — along with seven other PPP deals — could be approved this Friday by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA)-Investment Coordination Committee-Cabinet Committee (ICC-CabCom), officials said yesterday.
PPP Center Executive Director Cosette V. Canilao told reporters during a media conference of the ASEAN PPP Forum at Sofitel Philippine Plaza in Pasay City that rebidding of CALAX “will have to secure new regulatory approvals as the terms were changed.”
“It will be the NEDA-ICC-CabCom and the Board which will approve the new terms of the rebidding, then we will forward it to the Office of the President,” she explained when asked what approvals are needed to move forward with the new project auction.
This was after Public Works and Highways Secretary Rogelio L. Singson was quoted by a PPP Center statement earlier this month as saying that the new auction will require a minimum bid of P20.1 billion — the top premium San Miguel Corp.’s Optimal Infrastructure Development, Inc. offered to pay besides project cost in the scuttled first tender — and that it “will undergo a shorter one-stage bidding process where both technical and financial bids will be opened simultaneously.”
This development comes in the wake of the expiry last Dec. 10 of a 15-day period within which the highest compliant bidder — Team Orion of Ayala Corp.’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. and Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc.’s Aboitiz Land, Inc. — was allowed to file an appeal against Malacañang’s order for rebidding late last month. Ariel C. Angeles, director of Public-Private Partnership Service of the Public Works and Highways department, confirmed via phone interview on Tuesday: “We didn’t receive any appeal from Team Orion so we moved forward with the rebidding.”
CALAX is a 47-kilometer, eight-interchange tollway that will run between Cavite Expressway’s Kawit, Cavite end and South Luzon Expressway-Mamplasan interchange in Biñan, Laguna.
The first CALAX auction last June ended in controversy after Optimal Infrastructure — which offered the highest premium — was disqualified on a technicality involving its bid security.
That left Team Orion — with a much smaller offered premium of P11.66 billion — as being deemed the highest compliant bidder. The other two bidders were Metro Pacific Investments Corp.-led MPCALA Holdings, Inc. which offered an P11.33-billion premium and MTD Philippines, Inc. which offered P922 million. Optimal Infrastructure sought Malacañang’s intervention later in June. The Palace ordered DPWH on Nov. 19 to hold a new auction.
Of the four original bidders, only MPCALA and Optimal Infrastructure have renewed their bid bond, which guarantees that bidders have the financial muscle to carry out the project.
The department aims to publish a new invitation to bid this month and set submission and opening of bids in May next year.
OTHER PPP PROJECTS
Other projects up for discussion at the Dec. 19 NEDA-ICC-CabCom meeting are the: P19.33-billion Motor Vehicle Inspection System; P177.22-billion North-South Railway Project (South Line); P374.5-billion Makati-Pasay-Taguig Mass Transit System Loop; Light Rail Transit Line 1 Extension to Dasmariñas Project; Ninoy Aquino International Airport Development Project; the joint venture for the P25.6-billion North Luzon Expressway-South Luzon Expressway Connector Road; and the P1.16-billion Civil Registry System-IT Project (Phase II).
