DIVERSIFIED conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) submitted to the Department of Transportation (DOTr) on Monday its revised unsolicited proposal for the construction of the New Manila Airport in Bulacan, a transport official said on Tuesday.

Transport Undersecretary Ruben S. Reinoso Jr. said his group is currently in the process of reviewing the amended proposal, which was first flagged by the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) and the Department of Finance (DOF) earlier this year.

“Most of the issues discussed are provisions on what constitutes material adverse government action, what constitutes change in law to warrant compensation by the government to the private sector, and the determination of payment in case of fault of either party—those are the three major issues discussed based on certain agreements,” he said on the sidelines of the Philippine Economic Briefing at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) headquarters on Tuesday.

He said the evaluation may take days to finish, as the documents sent were “thick.”

“We cannot simply scan it because every comma, period, matters a lot. These things can be sources of legal tussles,” Reinoso explained.

He added the first proposal’s language was “very broad.”

“So we wanted to be more specific. We wanted more details, because if the language is broad, sometimes, it becomes subject to dispute in the future,” Reinoso said.

Officials of the transport department will meet with executives from SMC on Monday to discuss the revised proposal.

“As soon as we are able to agree on the concession agreement, it will be submitted to the Neda Investment Coordination Committee for confirmation,” Reinoso said.

Concurrently, the department is now “drafting” the Swiss challenge for the unsolicited proposal.

“We hope to finish this by yearend so hopefully proponent will be granted approval or awarded contract early next year or later this year,” Reinoso said.

In a nutshell, a Swiss challenge is the process of seeking competitive bids to challenge the unsolicited proposal. The original proponent will then have the right to match or submit a counteroffer to win the project.

Under its proposal, SMC wants to spend P735 billion to develop the Bulacan International Airport, envisioned as a 2,500-hectare airport complex that will have a total capacity of 100 million passengers annually.

It also has a provision for the construction of an 8.4-kilometer airport toll road, and a four-to-six runway design.

The proposal also included the construction of a sea port, an industrial zone and expressways. SMC’s proposed concession period is 50 years.

By Lorenz S. Marasigan