Metro Pacific Investments Corp. said it is interested to join the bidding for the operations and maintenance contract of Clark International Airport in Pampanga province.
Metro Pacific chairman Manuel Pangilinan, chairman of MPIC, said the company also submitted an unsolicited proposal to rehabilitate and expand Clark as well as operate and maintain it, but the government preferred to do the airport development by itself.
When asked if his group was interested to join the bidding for the Clark O&M contract, Pangilinan said, “Yes, of course.”
The Transportation Department earlier said it would no longer entertain unsolicited proposals for the project and just bid out the O&M of the airport in the future.
The “hybrid” mode of implementation means the government would not consider multi-billion peso offers to develop Clark airport. The agency, instead, will develop it on its own before bidding out the O&M component. This will enable government to speed up the project without the risk of delay brought about by possible lawsuits filed by losing bidders.
Megawide Construction Corp. and partner GMR Infrastructure Ltd. of India and JG Summit Holdings Inc. and Filinvest Development Corp. will be informed of the new policy.
Both groups were seeking original proponent status for the unsolicited proposal of Clark airport development.
Megawide-GMR said the group submitted an unsolicited proposal for the development of Clark airport on July 27, 2016. The joint venture partners, which won the development of Mactan Cebu International Airport, came up with a P200-billion 50-year master plan based on independent studies of Clark and its potential as a gateway. It proposed six phases of development that would provide a saturation phase of 100 million passengers a year.
Another group, the consortium of JG-Filinvest, also submitted an unsolicited proposal to build a P187-billion world-class airport in Clark Freeport Zone by 2020.
The group said the 50-year concession would start with an initial capacity for 8 million passengers compared with the existing traffic of 1 million.
The master plan allows CIA to expand its terminals and runways to easily accommodate the traffic growth over the next 50 years.
The consortium committed to a robust and regular capacity augmentation program to ensure the CIA would continually meet the passenger service performance standards of world-class airports.
Airlines operating in Clark include Qatar Airways, Cebu Pacific, Tigerair Air, Jin Air, Asiana Airlines, Dragon Air, Air Asia Berhad and Emirates Airlines.
These airlines mount flights to Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Macau, Pudong, Incheon, Doha, Dubai, Davao, Cebu and Kalibo.