Much better deal than Cha-cha

The successful conduct and outcome of the public bidding for the privatization and rehabilitation of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) could be the best argument to reject Charter change (Cha-cha). If only to lift the purported restrictive provisions of the 1987 Constitution as the casus belli for Cha-cha, the just concluded competitive public bidding to privatize NAIA gives impetus to our homegrown businessmen with foreign investors/partners to have the bold confidence on the Philippine economy.

Last Friday, a consortium led by one of the country’s biggest conglomerates won the public bidding for a 15-year concession to rehabilitate, upgrade, and to operate NAIA. The consortium of San Miguel Corp.-Strategic Airport Partners & Co. (SMC SAP) will bring in its foreign partner Incheon International Airport Corp., the company handling one of the best gateways in the world, according to Skytrax.

The consortium won the contract for its highest bid offer to the government of revenue sharing at 82.16 percent, beating rival bidders that tendered way below its offer. In total, the government expects to raise more than P900 billion in revenue from turning over the operations and maintenance of our country’s premier gateway.

The SMC SAP concession is under a rehabilitate-operate-expand-transfer arrangement under the Build-Operate-and-Transfer (BOT) Law. The concession, however, provided it can be extended up to 10 years, depending on the performance of the consortium. For the first six years of the concession, the consortium would be required to spend a minimum of P88 billion for upgrading the services of the airport.

The government, through the Department of Transportation (DoTr) and the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), issued in August last year the invitation to bid for the concession contract. Invited were both local and foreign investors to bid for the P170.6-billion public-private partnership (PPP) project. The NAIA PPP project will cover all facilities of the ageing airport, including its runways, four terminals, and associated facilities all located in Pasay City.

It was billed as one of the quickest privatization processes for any