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Opinion
Terminal case
By Bong Lacson
Mar 12, 2010
GOTCHA. JARIUS Bondoc got the cat out of the bag Wednesday in his column in the Philippine Star: “Clark airport deal being rushed, does GMA know?”
No lemon-sweetening here but in our February 22-23, 2010 issue, we have already reported of the seeming scheming within the Clark International Airport Corp. relative to its Terminal 2 project . Yeah, our very banner then: “Conspiracy to block DMIA dev’t revealed” with the very naughty “Terminal illness hits Clark agencies” for sub-head. To quote from the news story:
‘Terminal illness’
The PGKM also sees one more “manifestation” of the DMIA’s “non-development” in its Terminal 2 project.
In September 2006, President Arroyo presided over the laying of the time capsule for the construction of Terminal 2. It was announced then that the sum of P3 billion, to come from the Manila International Airport Authority, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., and the Bureau of Immigration, among other agencies will be allotted for the project.
In succeeding reports from the CIAC, it was private consortia of local and foreign companies that were bidding for the terminal project, the P3 billion from MIAA, PAGCOR, BI and other government agencies “conveniently forgotten.”
At least two major bidding schedules for the Terminal 2 projects since 2007 ended as “failures” with no definitive winners.
Early this year, CIAC Board Chairman Nestor Mangio announced before a hastily-gathered assembly of mediamen that the CIAC Board “has found acceptable” the proposal of a total investment value of $1.2 billion by
ALMAL Investments Co., a subsidiary of the Kuwaiti mega developer M.A. Kharafi Projects.
Mangio told media the proposal covered all civil components of the DMIA Terminals 1, 2 and 3 plus the adjacent 1,500 hectares in the aviation complex “strictly following the CIAC original master plan.”
He added that ALMAL committed a total of $100 million to the development of Terminal 2, “representing Phase 1” and expected to be finished within two years after the signing of a joint venture agreement between the CIAC and the Kuwaiti company.
The Terminal 2 project will have a total floor area of 35,000 square meters and a capacity of 7 million passengers per year
In its unsolicited proposal, ALMAL will form a joint venture company (JVC) with CIAC on a 70-30 sharing scheme, CIAC getting the 30 percent share for contributing the leasehold rights over the land. CIAC will neither contribute cash nor issue a government guarantee. This according to Mangio.
“On top of the proposal is an upfront non-refundable goodwill money of P100 million that ALMAL-Pride Consortium will pay CIAC upon signing and execution of the concession agreement.” Mangio stressed.
Last week, informal sources at CIAC notified Punto that the CIAC board, in its meeting at Club Filipino on Feb. 16, “has junked the ALMAL proposal for being grossly disadvantageous to the government.” This directly contradicted Mangio’s earlier announcement to the media of the board having found the proposal “acceptable.”
The sources disclosed that the same proposal had already been junked in a previous bidding “even after Mangio took President Macapagal-Arroyo, along with Trade Secretary Peter Favila and Rep. Tarzan Lazatin in Egypt for a meeting with the Kharafis (ALMAL’s owners).”
Mangio, the source alleged, “is seeking the intervention of Favila to influence the CDC into approving the ALMAL proposal.”
With the Terminal 2 project impossible to meet its intended opening by the end of the term of President Macapagal-Arroyo in June 2010, the CIAC has shifted focus on the rehabilitation of the existing terminal at a cost of P308 million.
“The Terminal 2 could have served as the redemption by the President of her father’s failed promise of caduang apag (second serving of development) to the Kapampangan,” the PGKM lamented .
This even as it scored the CIAC for “terminal illness” in its incapacity to even preside over a successful bidding of projects.
From there, let’s shift to Bondoc’s report on Mangio’s apparent rush to score the Terminal 2 deal with ALMAL.
Last week, Mangio managed to shanghai, so to speak, to Kuwait CIAC President –CEO Chichos Luciano, VP for operations (not director, as Bondoc wrote) Romeo Dyoco, and CIAC board director Raffy Angeles “to finish negotiations with Sheikh Loay Al Kharafi, head of the Al Mal-PRIDE Consortium.”
CIAC insiders say the “hush-hush” trip was part of the “rush-rush” scheme impacted on Mangio.
“By taking them to Kuwait, to the very domain of ALMAL, Mangio thought Luciano, Dyoco and Angeles would be persuaded to change their stand, and influence the CIAC board to approve the Kuwaiti proposal.” So our CIAC mole says.
No, the insider says, Luciano, Dyoco and Angeles — even before the ALMAL deity himself, and whatever consideration that entailed – did not stir a bit to even think of reconsidering the proposal they had already rejected, the same proposal deemed disadvantageous to the government, and which certain provisions had been objected to by the Office of Government Corporate Counsel for being illegal.
To quote Bondoc: “The joint venture plan would cover three airport terminals. There are objections for all three:
• Terminal-1 would be handed over to the Kuwaiti firm for $20 million for 25 years. But its potential revenues during that period would top $120 million. The basis for the $20-million “selling price” was unclear.
• Al Mal-PRIDE would invest $100 million to modernize Terminal-2 under a 70:30 ownership with CIAC. This is against the law that requires public utilities to be run by 60-percent Filipino firms. Al Mal’s excuse is that its consortium partner, PRIDE, is a 100-percent Filipino firm. PRIDE allegedly is a front of at least three Batangas politicos.
• Terminal-3 would be developed under a clause that the Philippine government would not put up or operate an airport within a 50-kilometer radius. This was deemed onerous for tying down the government’s hands.”
That despite all these, Mangio is – in the words of the CIAC insider – “stubborn in his espousal of the ALMAL proposal” raises a lot of speculations, uniformly unkind, if not outright malicious.
As early as the day our “terminal illness” story came out, outlandish talks of millions in dollars and Rolex and Patek Philippe watches switching hands already flew out of CIAC.
Now, now, to paraphrase Patek Philippe’s patented blurb: You don’t actually own, and thus have no liberty to sell, the DMIA. You just look after it for the next generation.
Imperative now for Mangio, Luciano, et al to make a clean breast out of this terminal-ALMAL mess. Or do they want another NBN-ZTE scandal to blow up not only on their faces but moreso on that of their beloved President?
No lemon-sweetening here but in our February 22-23, 2010 issue, we have already reported of the seeming scheming within the Clark International Airport Corp. relative to its Terminal 2 project . Yeah, our very banner then: “Conspiracy to block DMIA dev’t revealed” with the very naughty “Terminal illness hits Clark agencies” for sub-head. To quote from the news story:
‘Terminal illness’
The PGKM also sees one more “manifestation” of the DMIA’s “non-development” in its Terminal 2 project.
In September 2006, President Arroyo presided over the laying of the time capsule for the construction of Terminal 2. It was announced then that the sum of P3 billion, to come from the Manila International Airport Authority, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., and the Bureau of Immigration, among other agencies will be allotted for the project.
In succeeding reports from the CIAC, it was private consortia of local and foreign companies that were bidding for the terminal project, the P3 billion from MIAA, PAGCOR, BI and other government agencies “conveniently forgotten.”
At least two major bidding schedules for the Terminal 2 projects since 2007 ended as “failures” with no definitive winners.
Early this year, CIAC Board Chairman Nestor Mangio announced before a hastily-gathered assembly of mediamen that the CIAC Board “has found acceptable” the proposal of a total investment value of $1.2 billion by
ALMAL Investments Co., a subsidiary of the Kuwaiti mega developer M.A. Kharafi Projects.
Mangio told media the proposal covered all civil components of the DMIA Terminals 1, 2 and 3 plus the adjacent 1,500 hectares in the aviation complex “strictly following the CIAC original master plan.”
He added that ALMAL committed a total of $100 million to the development of Terminal 2, “representing Phase 1” and expected to be finished within two years after the signing of a joint venture agreement between the CIAC and the Kuwaiti company.
The Terminal 2 project will have a total floor area of 35,000 square meters and a capacity of 7 million passengers per year
In its unsolicited proposal, ALMAL will form a joint venture company (JVC) with CIAC on a 70-30 sharing scheme, CIAC getting the 30 percent share for contributing the leasehold rights over the land. CIAC will neither contribute cash nor issue a government guarantee. This according to Mangio.
“On top of the proposal is an upfront non-refundable goodwill money of P100 million that ALMAL-Pride Consortium will pay CIAC upon signing and execution of the concession agreement.” Mangio stressed.
Last week, informal sources at CIAC notified Punto that the CIAC board, in its meeting at Club Filipino on Feb. 16, “has junked the ALMAL proposal for being grossly disadvantageous to the government.” This directly contradicted Mangio’s earlier announcement to the media of the board having found the proposal “acceptable.”
The sources disclosed that the same proposal had already been junked in a previous bidding “even after Mangio took President Macapagal-Arroyo, along with Trade Secretary Peter Favila and Rep. Tarzan Lazatin in Egypt for a meeting with the Kharafis (ALMAL’s owners).”
Mangio, the source alleged, “is seeking the intervention of Favila to influence the CDC into approving the ALMAL proposal.”
With the Terminal 2 project impossible to meet its intended opening by the end of the term of President Macapagal-Arroyo in June 2010, the CIAC has shifted focus on the rehabilitation of the existing terminal at a cost of P308 million.
“The Terminal 2 could have served as the redemption by the President of her father’s failed promise of caduang apag (second serving of development) to the Kapampangan,” the PGKM lamented .
This even as it scored the CIAC for “terminal illness” in its incapacity to even preside over a successful bidding of projects.
From there, let’s shift to Bondoc’s report on Mangio’s apparent rush to score the Terminal 2 deal with ALMAL.
Last week, Mangio managed to shanghai, so to speak, to Kuwait CIAC President –CEO Chichos Luciano, VP for operations (not director, as Bondoc wrote) Romeo Dyoco, and CIAC board director Raffy Angeles “to finish negotiations with Sheikh Loay Al Kharafi, head of the Al Mal-PRIDE Consortium.”
CIAC insiders say the “hush-hush” trip was part of the “rush-rush” scheme impacted on Mangio.
“By taking them to Kuwait, to the very domain of ALMAL, Mangio thought Luciano, Dyoco and Angeles would be persuaded to change their stand, and influence the CIAC board to approve the Kuwaiti proposal.” So our CIAC mole says.
No, the insider says, Luciano, Dyoco and Angeles — even before the ALMAL deity himself, and whatever consideration that entailed – did not stir a bit to even think of reconsidering the proposal they had already rejected, the same proposal deemed disadvantageous to the government, and which certain provisions had been objected to by the Office of Government Corporate Counsel for being illegal.
To quote Bondoc: “The joint venture plan would cover three airport terminals. There are objections for all three:
• Terminal-1 would be handed over to the Kuwaiti firm for $20 million for 25 years. But its potential revenues during that period would top $120 million. The basis for the $20-million “selling price” was unclear.
• Al Mal-PRIDE would invest $100 million to modernize Terminal-2 under a 70:30 ownership with CIAC. This is against the law that requires public utilities to be run by 60-percent Filipino firms. Al Mal’s excuse is that its consortium partner, PRIDE, is a 100-percent Filipino firm. PRIDE allegedly is a front of at least three Batangas politicos.
• Terminal-3 would be developed under a clause that the Philippine government would not put up or operate an airport within a 50-kilometer radius. This was deemed onerous for tying down the government’s hands.”
That despite all these, Mangio is – in the words of the CIAC insider – “stubborn in his espousal of the ALMAL proposal” raises a lot of speculations, uniformly unkind, if not outright malicious.
As early as the day our “terminal illness” story came out, outlandish talks of millions in dollars and Rolex and Patek Philippe watches switching hands already flew out of CIAC.
Now, now, to paraphrase Patek Philippe’s patented blurb: You don’t actually own, and thus have no liberty to sell, the DMIA. You just look after it for the next generation.
Imperative now for Mangio, Luciano, et al to make a clean breast out of this terminal-ALMAL mess. Or do they want another NBN-ZTE scandal to blow up not only on their faces but moreso on that of their beloved President?
- (Re)signing privilege
- Well said Mr. President
- Panakip butas
- ‘Justice delayed, Justice denied’
- Trucking the dike
- Real lessons in life
- ‘Justice delayed, Justice denied’
- Body count
- Christian-democracy, in praxis
- The importance of water to our health
- Kumusta na ang Angeles sa kamay ni Mayor Ed?
- Losing contact with reality
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