6 companies vie for $10-B Sangley Airport contract, says Gov. Remulla

At least five major local companies and one Chinese firm are interested in the provincial government’s initiative to expand the Sangley Airport to an international gateway, Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla said Tuesday.

“MPIC (Metro Pacific Investments Corp.) is one. DM Consunji is one. Ayala has signified their intention, and SM has signified their intention also,” Remulla told reporters on the sidelines of Sangley Airport operations dry run.

He said the cost of the entire project has been estimated at $10 billion.

China Construction Co. has bought bid documents, the governor noted. “I forgot the others, but so far they are the big groups.”

The deadline to purchase bid documents is November 11, 2019.

“After that they will submit their tender [offer] on, I think, November 25,” Remulla said, noting that the winning bidder will be given the contract by the end of November.

“It will break ground on January 15. The first runway will be completed in three years and then the four runways, we plan, in six years,” he said.

“Four runways will be able to handle 100 million passengers,” Remulla noted.

“The reclamation component will be at least $3 billion and then the airport itself, including the runway,  including the avionics, including the terminal will cost another $7 billion so mga $10 billion ang cost niyan,” he said.

The provincial government will reclaim and lease the land to the winning company that will build the Sangley Airport.

The provincial government originally intended to solely undertake the project, however, Remulla said the “government bidding process is too cumbersome so we would rather that they lease the land from us and they put up an airport company before. Everything would be private.”

The airport operations and maintenance will be a separate bidding after the construction project is completed.

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) took over Sangley Airport’s construction after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered to complete the project by November.

The government tapped Unimaster Conglomeration Inc. as contractor for the project worth P486.028 million. 

Remulla said the Cavite government will reimburse DOTr’s expenses once the Sangley Airport expansion is ready to be implemented.

There has been renewed interest in building airports outside of Metro Manila, as NAIA—the country’s premier gateway—has reached overcapacity.

Currently serving at least 42 million passengers, the four NAIA terminals were designed to accommodate 31 million passengers a year.

Remulla said the Sangley Airport can coexist with the planned New Manila International Airport to of decongest NAIA.

“Bulacan [airport] and us can coexist in a good manner. They will have the northern catch basin sa amin ang south catchment basin of CALABARZON of 11 million,” he said. —VDS, GMA News