Gov’t sets deadline for unified SLEX-NLEX plan

MANILA, Philippines - The Aquino administration is giving First Pacific’s Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. and diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. until Dec. 18 to come up with a unified proposal on the common area of the ambitious North Luzon expressway and South Luzon expressway connector roads.

In an interview with reporters on the sidelines of the Economic Forum 2012 organized by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines (EJAP), MPTC president Ramoncito Fernandez said the proposed connector road has been approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) last Nov. 8.

Fernandez said the approval was conditional as both MPTC and SMC’s Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp. would have to come up with a unified common area.

He pointed out that both MPTC and Citra agreed to have a common area spanning five kilometers from Quirino in Manila up to Nagtahan in Sta. Mesa in Manila crossing the Pasig River.

The cost of the development of the common area, according to him, would be shared by both MPTC and SMC.

President Aquino decided to let both MPTC and SMC to build their own connector roads to be completed by 2015.

The road projects would connect Makati City where the SLEX ends to Caloocan and Balintawak where NLEX starts. The project cost is placed at P45 billion.

Linking NLEx and SLEx has been in the pipeline since 2010, when MPTC submitted an unsolicited proposal to build a 13.4-kilometer, 4-lane elevated road connecting the two over the railway from Makati to Caloocan.

MPTC operates the 83.7-kilometer NLEX and has an indirect stake of two percent in SMC’s Citra.

Meanwhile, Fernandez said the company has sweetened its offer to the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) to operate the 94-kilometer Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX).

He said the company raised the concession fees and revenue share of the government by 40 percent to P90 billion over a 30-year period instead of only P64.4 billion.