“MALAYSIAN FIRM offers $150-M for DMIA terminal expansion.”
Good news, real good news was this paper’s banner headline Friday last week.
Read the story datelined Clark Freeport: A group of influential Malaysian investors has offered to infuse at least $150 million in direct investments for the expansion of the Diosdado Macapagal Inter-national Airport’s (DMIA) passenger terminal here.
Bristeel Overseas Ventures Inc., (BOV), a group made up of publicly listed conglomerates based in Malaysia, said it is willing to enter into a joint venture agreement with the Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC) for the development and expansion of the DMIA Terminal 1 with a passenger capacity of seven million annually.
“We believe that the expansion of the airport’s terminal is now urgently needed to lure in the entry of more international airlines and boost the position of DMIA as the next major gateway of the Philippines,” said William Chee, authorized representative of BOV.
He added that they have been studying the project for more than a year now.
Yeah, good news there. Really good news. So should we now sing our heaven-bound hosannas to board chairman Nestor Mangio and president-CEO Chichos Luciano of the Clark International Airport Corp.?
Not as yet. Malicious me sense some fishiness here.
Not too long ago, on May 3 to be exact, we bannered here ‘Example of a successful failure’ in reference to the P308-M DMIA Terminal 1 expansion project.
Projected to be inaugurated by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself on her very birthday – April 5, 2010 – the T-1 project was only 60 percent complete at the time the banner story came out. It was way past its deadline of completion that was after 90 calendar days from the commencement of work on December 15, 2009.
The cause of the lag was fingered on the failure of T-1’s principal contractor, one AG Araja, to pay the sub-contractors despite AG Araja’s being paid on time by CIAC.
AG Araja was likewise deplored for its “total indifference – walang malasakit – to the Kapampangans, be it with the terminal or with the sub-contractors.”
The very choice of AG Araja as principal contractor was also made an issue against CIAC by the sub-contractors as we quoted in one past column thus: “Why did CIAC have to give it to a contractor from Laguna when there is an extravagance of equally if not more competent contractors in Pampanga…A Kapampangan contractor would make sure of completing the project on time, knowing that it is a legacy of the Kapampangan president for her people. His pride and honor would ensure that work will be best, if not fast…”
To save the T-1 project, it was reported then that Mangio wanted the contract with AG Araja terminated and go about its completion “by administration.”
On the other hand, Luciano reportedly favored an extension for AG Araja until such time T-1 is completed, which earned him the ire of the sub-contractors who promptly labeled him “coddler.”
Now comes this news of the Malaysian consortium BOV offering $150 million for the T-1 project, bringing in more questions rather than solutions to the stalemated T-1 project.
What has happened to AG Araja? Will CIAC just allow it to take the money and run without completing the T-1 project?
What happens now to the unpaid sub-contractors?
After spending P380 million on a still unfinished T-1, another $150 million is being infused specifically for what? Ain’t that in a way throwing good money after bad?
Yeah, how can CIAC be so cocksure that the Malaysian consortium really has the proffered $150 million? Have Mangio and Luciano been shown the color of that money?
Or, is this Malaysian offer all a scam? Authored by CIAC itself to hide its gross incompetence in seeing to completion the T-1 project? A face-saving cover-up for its abject failure to make concretely real this legacy project of GMA?
Yeah, there’s strong smell of a rotting rat there.
Good news, real good news was this paper’s banner headline Friday last week.
Read the story datelined Clark Freeport: A group of influential Malaysian investors has offered to infuse at least $150 million in direct investments for the expansion of the Diosdado Macapagal Inter-national Airport’s (DMIA) passenger terminal here.
Bristeel Overseas Ventures Inc., (BOV), a group made up of publicly listed conglomerates based in Malaysia, said it is willing to enter into a joint venture agreement with the Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC) for the development and expansion of the DMIA Terminal 1 with a passenger capacity of seven million annually.
“We believe that the expansion of the airport’s terminal is now urgently needed to lure in the entry of more international airlines and boost the position of DMIA as the next major gateway of the Philippines,” said William Chee, authorized representative of BOV.
He added that they have been studying the project for more than a year now.
Yeah, good news there. Really good news. So should we now sing our heaven-bound hosannas to board chairman Nestor Mangio and president-CEO Chichos Luciano of the Clark International Airport Corp.?
Not as yet. Malicious me sense some fishiness here.
Not too long ago, on May 3 to be exact, we bannered here ‘Example of a successful failure’ in reference to the P308-M DMIA Terminal 1 expansion project.
Projected to be inaugurated by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself on her very birthday – April 5, 2010 – the T-1 project was only 60 percent complete at the time the banner story came out. It was way past its deadline of completion that was after 90 calendar days from the commencement of work on December 15, 2009.
The cause of the lag was fingered on the failure of T-1’s principal contractor, one AG Araja, to pay the sub-contractors despite AG Araja’s being paid on time by CIAC.
AG Araja was likewise deplored for its “total indifference – walang malasakit – to the Kapampangans, be it with the terminal or with the sub-contractors.”
The very choice of AG Araja as principal contractor was also made an issue against CIAC by the sub-contractors as we quoted in one past column thus: “Why did CIAC have to give it to a contractor from Laguna when there is an extravagance of equally if not more competent contractors in Pampanga…A Kapampangan contractor would make sure of completing the project on time, knowing that it is a legacy of the Kapampangan president for her people. His pride and honor would ensure that work will be best, if not fast…”
To save the T-1 project, it was reported then that Mangio wanted the contract with AG Araja terminated and go about its completion “by administration.”
On the other hand, Luciano reportedly favored an extension for AG Araja until such time T-1 is completed, which earned him the ire of the sub-contractors who promptly labeled him “coddler.”
Now comes this news of the Malaysian consortium BOV offering $150 million for the T-1 project, bringing in more questions rather than solutions to the stalemated T-1 project.
What has happened to AG Araja? Will CIAC just allow it to take the money and run without completing the T-1 project?
What happens now to the unpaid sub-contractors?
After spending P380 million on a still unfinished T-1, another $150 million is being infused specifically for what? Ain’t that in a way throwing good money after bad?
Yeah, how can CIAC be so cocksure that the Malaysian consortium really has the proffered $150 million? Have Mangio and Luciano been shown the color of that money?
Or, is this Malaysian offer all a scam? Authored by CIAC itself to hide its gross incompetence in seeing to completion the T-1 project? A face-saving cover-up for its abject failure to make concretely real this legacy project of GMA?
Yeah, there’s strong smell of a rotting rat there.
