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THE
Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) has offered potential
buyers of government-owned Batangas Port Phase II a
“backdoor option” that would give these companies a way
out in view of adverse court decisions.
PPA
general manager Oscar M. Sevilla in an interview with
reporters last week they are still awaiting the letter
of conformity of bidders International Container
Terminal Services Inc. (Ictsi) and Asian Terminals Inc.
(ATI) before they would proceed with the bidding.
The
Ictsi and ATI, respectively, are the country’s largest
and second-largest port operators in the country in
terms of volume.
“Whatever happens, even if the case is not finished,
with the facilities in place by the end of the year, we
will proceed with the bidding. We will put an escape
clause on the contract in case the Supreme Court decided
against us,” Sevilla said.
The PPA
reiterated it will pursue the bidding procedure,
possibly before end of the year, but will ask the two
eligible bidders to agree to the new terms that will
give the companies a way out in case the Supreme Court
gives an adverse decision on the price of land of the
facility.
The
state firm suspended the bidding last September weeks
after a division of the high court decided that the
price of the lot was at of P5,500 per square meter. The
court also ordered the PPA to pay the lot owners with
12-percent annual interest from the date of
expropriation on September 11, 2001. The total cost
would be P11.3 billion, or more than double than the
total project price P6.16 billion.
PPA
maintained that the just compensation for the lot owners
should be lower than P4,800 per square meter because the
subject lots, consisting of 1.22 hectares, were
agricultural lands and are not being used for commercial
or industrial purposes.
All of
the three major packages of the Phase II of the Batangas
Port development have been completed, except for the
cargo-handling equipment.
Package
1, worth P5.7 billion, covers marine and civil works
while Package 2, worth P126 million and was completed on
September 2001, involves supply and installation of
passenger boarding bridges. Package 3, worth P336
million, involves construction of port access road and
flyover.
“We are
just waiting for the formal reply [from Ictsi and ati]
if they are amenable to the new terms of reference,” he
said, adding that they could lift the suspended bidding
once the two firms formalized its conformity with the
new terms.
Sevilla
explained that they need to pursue the bidding procedure
since the cargo handling equipment—the two quay cranes
and among others– will be arriving later this month and
will be installed in December.
He added
that they needed to make a move before the year ends or
the equipment would become idle if they would wait for
the high-court’s final decision.
Sevilla
said if the two firms would not agree with the new
terms, they could either ask ATI, which already operates
the terminal on a temporary basis, to continue operating
it until the issue becomes clear or PPA itself will have
to operate the port.
The
PPA’s special bids and awards committee is conducting
the study on how much the total project cost of the
Batangas
Port would be, based on the P5,500 per square meter
price, and how the state firm would recover such amount. |
