Business World, 04 April 2013
FOUR GROUPS have qualified to bid for the second phase of a priority state project that aims to cut the country’s public school classroom shortage.
• Megawide Construction Corp., Inc., whose consortium had also bagged the contract for one of two segments of the first phase;
• Bright Future Educational Facilities, Inc. (BF Corp.)-Riverbanks Development Corp. consortium, which had bagged the other contract of the first phase;
• D.M. Wenceslao and Associates, Inc.-DATEM consortium; and
• BSP & Company-Vicente T. Lao Construction consortium.
The project’s page on the Web site of the Public-Private Partnership Center said “the objective of the government is to expand the supply of classrooms in all public school system as fast as it could reasonably be done and cut the current shortage of around 66,800 classroom units nationwide.”
The second phase of the PPP for School Infrastructure Project (PSIP-II) involves the designing, financing and construction of 10,679 classrooms — including furniture, fixtures and toilets — for 5,146 public schools in 14 regions.
The project was initially estimated to cost some P13.14 billion.
INTEREST
“Five companies submitted pre-qualification documents on Feb. 28 but only four were prequalified,” Therese Anne F. Manalastas, executive assistant of Francis M. Varela, DepEd undersecretary and chairman of the department’s Procurement, Bids and Awards Committee for PPP projects, said in a phone interview yesterday.
While she would not name the fifth party that submitted documents but was disqualified, the project page on the PPP Center Web site identified the other interested parties as IPM Construction and Development Corp.; Makati Development Corp.; R2 Builders; R.R. Encabo Contractor, Inc.; and S.C. Megaworld Construction and Development Corp.
According to the Invitation to Prequalify to Bid on the PPP Center Web site, “prospective bidders shall first be prequalified by the DepEd based on legal, technical and financial capacity requirements; and the prospective bidders which shall pre-qualify shall be invited to submit their bids.”
Ms. Manalastas said PSIP-II auction has been set for June 17.
Sought for comment, Louie B. Ferrer, Megawide vice-president for Marketing and chief information officer, yesterday said in a text message: “We are very pleased with the pre-qualification results. Just like in PSIP-I, we will do our best to improve quality of accommodation of Philippines’ future leaders.”
PSIP-II, which was rolled out in December last year, will be under a build-transfer arrangement whereby DepEd will issue a one-time payment to the winning bidder after the classrooms will have been built.
PSIP-I, on the other hand, involves a 10-year build-lease-transfer agreement. The P16.42-billion first phase involves construction of 9,301 classrooms in the Ilocos, Central Luzon, as well as Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon regions.
The two PSIP-I contracts were bagged by the Citicore Holdings Investment, Inc.-Megawide Construction Corp., Inc. and BF Corp.-Riverbanks Development Corp. consortia.
Oliver R. Hernandez, DepEd chief engineer, said in a phone interview last month that classroom construction under PSIP-I “will be completed in February next year.”
Besides PSIP-I, the Aquino administration has so far awarded only one other PPP project since the program was launched in the fourth quarter of 2010, namely: the $46.6-million Daang Hari-South Luzon Expressway Link Road Project bagged by Ayala Corp.
The government has also rolled out six other projects involving:
• P59.2-billion Light Rail Transit-1 Cavite Extension operation and maintenance (O&M);
• P17.52-billion Mactan-Cebu International Airport passenger terminal building;
• P15.86-billion Ninoy Aquino International Airport Expressway 2;
• P5.69-billion Orthopedic Center modernization;
• P1.722-billion Automatic Fare Collection System for Metro Manila’s railways; as well as
• P1.155-billion rehabilitation, O&M of auxiliary turbines 4 and 5 of the Angat Hydroelectric Power Plant. — K. M. P. Tubadeza
