Ayala –Aboitiz tandem tops CALAX bid

MANILA, Philippines - The tandem of Ayala Corp. and Aboitiz Equity Ventures submitted yesterday the highest bid for the P35.4-billion Cavite Laguna expressway project.

San Miguel Corp. (SMC), meanwhile, reiterated that it would study all legal options on the disqualification of Optimal Infrastructure Development Inc.

Team Orion of Ayala and Aboitiz Land Inc. submitted a concession payment of P11.659 billion for the public private partnership (PPP) project.

MPCALA Holdings Inc. of infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) submitted a bid of P11.33 billion while Malaysian-owned Alloy MTD Philippines was a far third with P922 million.

Public Works and Highways undersecretary Rafael Yabut refused to open the financial bid of SMC’s Optimal Infrastructure due to technicality.

Yabut denied the manifestation made by SMC head of treasury services Raoul Eduardo Romulo to open the financial envelop of Optimal Infrastructure that contained a bid of P20.105 billion.

The SMC Group did not accept the return of its technical and financial envelopes and said it would remain sealed under the custody and accountability of DPWH while it is studying all its legal options.

“To manifest Optimal Infrastructure’s sincere participation in this project, we are attaching an exact duplicate of the P20.105 billion concession payment as our bid amount,” Romulo said in a letter to Yabut.

Romulo told reporters after the opening of the financial bids that the diversified conglomerate would study all its legal option

“The people right now know what our bid was. We have disclosed it to the public. Personally I feel bad for the Filipino people because it is in essence what a competitive was, and ours was a very aggressive and competitive bid as you have seen,” he told reporters.

“The republic and the DPWH would have been the alternate beneficiary here. Unfortunately because of a mere typographical error, which they have allowed in the other bids, we were not given that leeway. It’s a sad day for us but we hope that the remedies will see us through,” he added

SMC tried to open its sealed financial bid before the media but was prevented by DPWH officials. Representatives of SMC were asked to leave the DPWH premises.

Despite the better financial bid of SMC, PPP Center Cosette Canilao said in an interview that there was a need to protect the integrity of the bidding process as the SMC unit was disqualified by the DPWH Special Bids and Awards Committee last June 11.

 â€œThe BAC decided that the security (of SMC) s imperfect so the committee disqualified the company. In this case, the highest complying bid is Team Orion,” she said.

According to her, the DPWH just followed the bidding rules in disqualifying Optimal Infrastructure.

 â€œWe need to protect the integrity of the process and the program. We need to look at the bigger picture rather than this particular project,” she stressed.

The PPP Center head said SMC could still file a motion for reconsideration before the Office of the President or the Office of the Secretary of the DPWH just like what they did in the bidding for the P1.72 billion Automated Fare Collection System (AFCS) project.

Yabut said the agency’s SBAC is expected to evaluate the financial bids of the three bidders before issuing a notice of award next week.

About 20 percent of the financial bid would have to be paid by the declared winner upon the signing of the 35-year concession contract while the balance of 80 percent would be payable over the next 10 years.

MPCALA Holdings, Team “Orion, and Alloy MTD Philippines sought the disqualification of SMC over its failure to comply with the validity of its bid security as well as the packaging and labeling requirements.

In a four page resolution dated June 11, the DPWH-SBAC stated that SMC failed to comply with two provisions of the Instruction to Bidders particularly Section 6.1 on the form of bid security as well as Section 6.2 covering the validity and purpose.

The provision states that the bid security required to be submitted as part of the bid proposal must be an irrevocable standby letter of credit in the amount of P355 million without modification.

Furthermore, the second provision requires that the bid security shall be valid for 180 days from the bid proposals’ submission date.

The DPWH stated in the resolution was the bid security submitted by Optimal Infrastructure was not in compliance to the provisions set in the ITB as the expiry date of the bid security should be Nov. 29 and not Nov. 25.

SMC earlier said its unit is fully compliant with the bid requirements for the toll road project as ANZ Bank has issued a certification that the company’s bid security is valid until Nov. 29 and not Nov. 25.

The project involves the financing, design and construction, operation and maintenance of the entire four-lane, 47-kilometer closed-system tolled expressway connecting the South Luzon expressway (SLEX) and the Manila Cavite Tollroad expressway (Cavitex).

The tollroad would provide a more convenient and faster route to or from Metro Manila to the Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon (Calabarzon) region.