2 more firms eye DOTC’s P2.5-B bus terminal project

MANILA, Philippines - The number of potential bidders for the proposed P2.5-billion Integrated Transport System (ITS) project – Southwest Terminal under the Aquino administration’s public private partnership (PPP) scheme has increased to 11.

In a general bid bulletin, the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) identified the additional interested parties as State Properties Corp. and Expedition Construction Corp.

Companies joining the bidding include diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp., conglomerate Ayala Corp. and property arm Ayala Land Inc., Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. of infrastructure giant Metro Pacific Investments Corp., Robinsons Land Inc. of taipan John Gokongwei, Filinvest Land Inc. of business tycoon Andrew Gotianun, Filipino-owned Mega-wide Construction Corp., D.M. Wenceslao and Associates Inc., Vicente T. Lao Construction, and French-owned Egis Projects Philippines.

The DOTC has given interested companies until May 15 to submit their bids for the multibillion-peso project.

The terminal would connect passengers coming from Cavite to other urban transport systems such as the future Light Rail Transit line 1 (LRT) South Extension to Bacoor in Cavite, city bus, taxi, and other public utility vehicles plying Metro Manila.

The project would include a passenger terminal building, arrival and departure bays, public information system, ticketing and baggage handling facilities and park-ride facilities.

To qualify to bid for the project, the DOTC stated in the invitation that a bidder must have local or international experience within the last 10 years and have completed one or more eligible projects with a cumulative cost of at least P2 billion and with capacity of at least 300 parking bays for vehicles.

Furthermore, the agency added that a bidder should have local or international experience in the operation and maintenance of one or more bus terminals with a cumulative bus parking capacity of at least 40 passenger buses with a minimum parking capacity of at least 20 buses in each terminal.

The P7.7 billion ITS project was one of the seven major infrastructure projects worth P184.2 billion approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board chaired by President Aquino last Nov. 21.

The project involves the establishment of  three mass transportation intermodal terminals at the outskirts of Metro Manila - one in the north of EDSA serving passengers to and from northern Luzon and two in the south serving passengers to and from Laguna or Batangas side and those to and from the Cavite side.

The ITS project aims to maximize road usage by reducing vehicle volume and eliminating provincial bus traffic to improve traffic flow along Metro Manila’s major thoroughfares particularly Edsa.