NAIA Consortium given until end-April to seal concession deal

MANILA, Philippines — The super consortium of seven conglomerates seeking to rehabilitate the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) has been given an ultimatum to finalize its concession agreement with the government.

Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said yesterday the NAIA Consortium is given until the end of next month to finish its concession agreement, otherwise, the government or another private entity would undertake the project.

“I will stop talking with the consortium if nothing happens,” Tugade said when asked on what would happen if the concession agreement is not finalized after April 30.  

“The discussions have taken so long that is why I am saying that I want to put a cap. It cannot take forever that is why there needs to be a deadline. By April 30, if we do not arrive at a common ground then we will do the project on the DOTr-MIAA side. We will continue it. I really want to speed up the decision on the unsolicited proposal of the consortium,” he said.

Aside from the government possibly undertaking the rehabilitation on its own, Tugade said it may also consider other proposals from private groups.

The group of Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastrucuture Ltd. of India has also previously submitted an unsolicited proposal to upgrade and rehabilitate NAIA.

 “I will cross the bridge when we get there. We have options. The option is still available for the government to do it. We will get there when the situation asks for it,” Tugade said.

Tugade declined to disclose specifics of the issues preventing the concession agreement from being finalized, but said one of them involves the installation of a people mover.

“(Sec. Tugade) talked about the people mover. That was one of the issues. They have to propose it in detail. It is lacking in details at the moment,” Transportation Undersecretary for Aviation Manuel Tamayo said.

“If you recall there is the concession agreement signed in Clark Airport for the operations and maintenance. We informed the NAIA consortium to adopt some of those provisions that are relevant,” he said.

Tamayo said a new concession agreement was submitted last March 20, but noted that the changes made were not that significant.

The NAIA consortium has been granted the original proponent status (OPS) by the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) board on Aug. 6, 2018 to operate and modernize the country’s main international gateway. It was officially awarded with the OPS on Sept. 13.

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) was previously targeting to complete the Swiss challenge process for the NAIA rehabilitation proposal in 2018, but has been pushed back to the second quarter.

The NAIA Consortium, composed of Aboitiz InfraCapital Inc., AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., Alliance Global Group Inc., Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp., Filinvest Development Corp., JG Summit Holdings Inc. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp., intends to pour in P102 billion to rehabilitate, upgrade, expand, operate, and maintain the aging NAIA for 15 years.

The unsolicited proposal, which was submitted to the DOTr and to the MIAA on Feb. 12 last year, aims to transform NAIA into a regional airport hub and will expand its capacity to meet the anticipated growth in passenger traffic from the economies of the Philippines and the region.

The project supports the government’s Build Build Build program with its plan to develop NAIA into a world-class facility and a regional air transport hub by upgrading its airside, landside and air navigation support — building on the gains already achieved by the DOTr in terms of improving the traffic of aircraft movements on its runways.

Tugade said the April 30 deadline on the NAIA Consortium is being put in place to show that it is not the government that is preventing the project from moving forward.

The transport chief has also asked the Cavite provincial government to submit by the middle of the year a revised proposal for the development of Sangley airport in Cavite, another major airport development that has yet to make significant progress.

“Ultimately there will be a deadline imposed. I don’t want a hanging offer because if it is hanging, then when will we start?” he said.

The Cavite government’s P552.018-billion unsolicited proposal to develop an international airport in Sangley has been given the green light by the DOTr in July last year, but no significant progress has taken place for the project since then.