With CALAX rebid on, Ayala Corp. hopes govt has learned lessons on PPP

In an email message to GMA News Online, Ayala Corp. managing director Eric Francia said there have been several lessons learned from the PPP experience over the last four years.
 

"We hope that the government will be able to incorporate these key learnings as they revisit and update the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) law," he said.

 

PPPs under the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) have been hounded by failed bidding and disagreements with and among private sector participants, the latest of which involved the P35.42-billion Cavite Laguna Expressway (CALAX) project.

 

CALAX will again be placed on the auction block after conglomerate San Miguel Corp. made an appeal to President Benigno Aquino III to rebid the project.

 

In the first bidding, San Miguel Corp. subsidiary Optimal Infrastructure Development Inc. was disqualified due to a defective bid security.

 

Competitor Team Orion – a consortium formed by Ayala Corp.’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. and Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc.’s Aboitiz Land Inc. – placed a bid of P11.66 billion. 

 

The Department of Public Works and Highways said on Monday it was preparing the terms and conditions for a rebid of the project.

 

In this process, Ayala Corp. said Team Orion will not stand in the way "in the interest of national progress.

 

"We expect the rebidding to be conducted swiftly, above board and in line with established bidding procedures in order to ensure that the government obtains the P20 billion it had assumed to gain," the company said in a statement.

 

However, Francia said Ayala Corp. is still keen on participating in other PPP projects.

 

"Ayala group is looking at Laguna Lake Dike Project through Ayala Land Inc., Bulacan Bulk Water Project through Manila Water, and Light Railway Transit 2  operation and management through Light Rail Manila Holdings (LRMH)," he said.

 

LRMH is Ayala Corp.'s joint venture with Metro Pacific Investments Corp. – VS/JST, GMA News