WHILE two groups pitching for the development of the Clark International Airport are busy fighting for their “right” as the original proponent of the unsolicited proposal, Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) is quietly preparing for its own offer.
MPIC President Jose Ma. K. Lim said that, while his group is gearing up for the planned public bidding for the development of Clark, the company has also hired experts to conduct a prefeasibility study for an unsolicited proposal.
“We have heard the two other proponents are preparing for a public bidding, but we are also prepared to submit our own proposal,” he said in an interview. “We are still working on it, and we have hired external consultants for the prefeasibility study.”
There are two groups that have so far submitted unsolicited offers for the development of Clark International Airport.
Claiming that its P187-billion offer is “fully compliant” with the requirements of the build-operate-transfer law, the consortium of Filinvest Development Corp. and JG Summit Holdings Inc.’s proposal involves the modernization of the airport under a five-decade concession, and will start with an initial capacity for 8 million passengers per year.
Its proposal, based on the Aeroport de Paris master plan prepared for Clark in 2015, also allows the airport to expand its terminals and runways to easily accommodate for traffic growth over the next 50 years.
The P250-billion proposal of GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. involves the development of the airport in six phases, leading to a total annual passenger capacity of 100 million per year.
Under a 50-year development plan, it aims to build two terminals and three runways, two of which will be independent in an 850,000-square-meter land. The plan also involves the construction of an integrated railway connection from Manila, similar to the one in Delhi, India.
This unsolicited offer is at no cost to the government, “will not require any subsidy, guarantee or mandatory movement of airlines from the Naia [Ninoy Aquino International Airport] to Clark.”
Instead, the proponent “committed to pay the government annually a share of the airport revenues over the concession period”.
The proposal of Megawide Construction Corp. and its Indian partner GMR Infrastructures Ltd. was submitted last July.
The offer of the Gokongwei and the Gotianum families was forwarded in January, Transportation Undersecretary Roberto C. Lim said. It was, however, refuted by the consortium, saying it made its offer in July 2016, right after President Duterte announced he is open to receiving unsolicited proposals.
The government wants to place the contract to develop Clark under public bidding. It will be done through the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme. The web site of the agency, however, did not enumerate the specific details of the contract.
Clark Civil Aviation Complex, located within the Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga, covers an area of approximately 2,367 hectares with a 3,200-meter-long runway and associated taxiways, aircraft parking apron, a passenger terminal building and related facilities. It has two runways in parallel configuration.
The airport logged in a total of 6,205 international and domestic flights with 950,732 passengers for local and foreign routes in 2016.
Although underutilized, Clark has a local catchment area with an estimated population of 23 million. It also serves passengers from Manila, and those with connecting flights from Cebu, Davao and other local destinations.
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons