SMC ‘to join any bidding’ on NAIA

The PNP lifestyle check isn’t so much on the 150,000 cops than on their chief Alan Purisima. Interior Sec. Mar Roxas reportedly wants Purisima out, for inability to stem criminality. Just that, the latter exploits 30 years of friendship with President Noynoy Aquino to defy not only Roxas but also Supreme Court writs and Congress summonses. So Roxas crafted the lifestyle scrutiny officially to affirm Purisima’s hidden wealth that anti-graft crusaders and investigative journalists already have bared. He figures that P-Noy finally would let go of the PNP head.

Yet, does P-Noy care enough about securing citizens’ lives and property to dump Purisima as needed? Read between the lines. He was asked in Europe about his admin’s human rights record, in light of many killings of journalists. He sneered at the supposed blanket statement. Then, as the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines notes, he dished out his own blanket statement. Allegedly the slain journalists likely were unethical for working jobs other than media.

Assuming without conceding that all the slain journalists were bad, does that merit their killing? If so, what to do about the many citizen journalists who likely have no grounding on media ideals; should they be shot for unrestraint? What of sensational texters and tweeters, some of them perhaps P-Noy’s kin; do they deserve death?

Perhaps the memory trip to the family home in exile in Boston inspired P-Noy to reorder his principles and priorities. No longer has he revenge in mind against the foot soldiers that shot then covered up the murder of his father, democracy leader Ninoy, in 1983. But can’t he, for national justice, use the powers of the Presidency to get the mastermind?

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Giant San Miguel Corp. is to join any bidding to expand the Manila International Airport. That ranges from mere paving of a third runway at the congested present site, to refurbishing the dilapidated Terminal-2, to building an entirely new facility nearby.

SMC has clear objectives to participate, SMC president Ramon S. Ang expounded in a chat with newspaper columnists this week. Aside from business earnings, the conglomerate also will ensure that government gets the best price and service.

Ang discussed his MIA intentions after revealing that SMC’s recent resale of 49 percent of Philippine Airlines has freed up half of his workday. He personally is to refocus on infrastructures.

P-Noy has ordered the addition of a third MIA runway, to which SMC offered to remodel the Terminal-2. Earlier SMC offered to build a $10-billion new adjacent MIA, but Transport Sec. Joseph Emilio Abaya prefers one farther away.

Propping the profit side are SMC’s inroads in construction and cement. It has erected an international airport for tourist magnet Boracay Island, and other infrastructures. It also infused last May $750 million to triple the capacity of 35 percent owned Northern Cement Corp.

By melding construction and cement, SMC economically can build infra-works, like one that soon would link the North and South Luzon Expressways. It is like Ang’s buy-in to Philippine Airlines, which became profitable due to, among others, SMC’s ties with Petron Corp. to supply any airline’s biggest operating cost: fuel.

The price-service angle is Ang’s way of restating his unfair ease-out from a recent bidding of a major highway, and Abaya’s snub of his proposal for an all-new MIA.

A third MIA runway is but a stopgap solution to flight congestion. Costing P2.4 billion to finish, it would increase takeoffs and landings to only 48 per hour, from the present 42.

SMC, or any rival constructor worth its salt, can pave it in 12 months. That is, if the DOTC can relocate in time thousands of homeowners who hold rights to the government property. The right-of-way issue is unlikely to be resolved before P-Noy’s term ends mid-2016.

Still, SMC proposes to add more arrival-departure gates to the Terminal-2. This is despite its recent resale of 49-percent share in PAL, the terminal’s exclusive user for international and domestic flights.

Put to waste was Ang’s presentation early this year to P-Noy of a new MIA at the nearby Manila Bay reclamation. SMC proposes to build on its own a $10-billion modern airport with four runways to handle more than a hundred takeoffs and landings per hour. The government is to own the site, which SMC would operate as a franchisee. It would be ten minutes from the old MIA site, and straddle the Pagcor Entertainment City. There are no right-of-way delays.

But Abaya has invited SMC only by press release to formalize and detail its offer. SMC’s plan would need financial-technical studies by the National Economic and Development Authority.

Abaya insists on the Sangley Naval Base across the Manila Bay as alternative. Containing a miniscule airstrip, it is in his congressional district in Cavite province, where he intends to regain his House of Reps seat after his Cabinet stint.

Using Sangley as a new MIA would cost the government P20 billion just to prepare for construction and use. Half the amount would be to reclaim enough hectares for parallel runways. Abaya’s brother, who heads the government’s reclamation authority, will pick the work contractor.

One-fourth, or P5 billion, would go to spanning Abaya’s dream bridge across the bay to Sangley. The last fourth would be to expand the congested highways leading to the naval base. No estimate has yet been made for the relocation of communities that straddle the base.

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