The fresh tender for the P35.42-billion Cavite-Laguna Expressway (Calax) deal will be staged not later than the first half of 2015, a Palace spokesman said on Wednesday.
Palace Spokesman Edwin S. Lacierda said the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) aims to put the contract on the auction block by April 2015, almost a year after the initial bidding was staged.
The agency is now finalizing the deal’s new terms of reference (TOR). “We are just preparing the TOR for the rebidding and we are looking for a period not longer than five months since it will be a new bidding,” Lacierda quoted Public Works Secretary Rogelio L. Singson as saying.
He noted the Palace has instructed the agency to fast-track the process for the rebidding.
The four parties that previously participated in the original tender were at loggerheads over their participation in the fresh auction. San Miguel Corp. President and COO Ramon S. Ang has said his firm’s subsidiary Optimal Infrastructure Development Inc. will participate in the bidding.
Metro Pacific Investments Corp., meanwhile, is still weighing the economic and political implications of the original auction. It, however, renewed its bid bond, signifying its intention to join the fresh tender.
MTD Philippines Inc. President Isaac S. David has expressed his firm’s disinterest in the deal, saying the government’s thirst for higher premium would be a deterrent to the riding public.
Team Orion of AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. and Aboitiz Land Inc. have repeatedly said they will not join the tender despite being the top bidder during the original auction held in June.
President Aquino effectively voided the initial bidding conducted by the DPWH’s Special Bids and Awards Committee for the public-private partnership project when he decided on November 19 to put the contract to a fresh auction, rueing the P8-billion difference between the winning bid of Team Orion and disqualified party Optimal.
Team Orion emerged as the front-runner during the auction, submitting an P11.66-billion premium to win the deal. Rival Optimal, whose bid was disqualified after failing the evaluation of its technical proposal, allegedly offered a higher P20.1-billion premium.
Business groups, led by the Makati Business Club, earlier warned President Aquino that his key infrastructure program’s good name may lose its credibility due to inconsistencies in rules, not to mention an alleged violation of the law.
But the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the largest business group in the Philippines, backed Mr. Aquino’s decision, as the rebidding would optimize the economic benefits for the state.
The project is a 47-kilometer thoroughfare that would start from the Manila-Cavite Expressway in Kawit, Cavite, and end at the South Luzon Expressway (Slex)-Mamplasan Interchange in Biñan, Laguna. It would consist of nine interchanges and a toll barrier before the Slex.
w/ Lorenz S. Marasigan