Government keen on pursuing Laguna Lakeshore PPP

MANILA, Philippines – The government is planning to remove the flood control component of the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike Project as it remains interested in pursuing the project.

“The liability on flooding, that was one of the points of contention, so there is a need to change the terms of the deal,” Public Works Secretary Mark Villar told reporters.

Bidding for the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike Project under the public-private partnership (PPP) program held in March last year was declared a failure as none of the pre-qualified firms submitted their bids.

Pre-qualified groups Alloy-PAVI-Hanshin LLEDP Consortium (composed of Alloy MTD Capital BHD, Prime Asset Ventures Inc., Hanshin Engineering Constructions); San Miguel Holdings Corp.; and Team Trident (composed of Trident Infrastructure and Development Corp., Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc., Ayala Land Inc., Megaworld Corp., and SM Prime Holdings Inc.), decided not to submit bids for the project citing concerns on the risk profile and complexity of the deal.

Among the concerns of the pre-qualified groups are the project’s flood control component and its connectivity to C5.

The project offered for bidding, involves putting up a high standard highway with a dike to ease congestion and mitigate flooding in the western coastal communities along the Laguna Lake.

The highway will be from Taguig in Metro Manila through the towns of Calamba to the Los Baños Bay boundary in Laguna.

Under the project, the winning bidder will be responsible for the financing, design, construction as well as operations and maintenance of a 47-kilometer flood control dike with six-lane expressway toll road on top for 37 years.

The private partner will likewise construct interchanges, bridges, floodgates, and pumps from Taguig to Los Baños.

In addition, it will be responsible for the reclamation of 700 hectares located west of and abutting the expressway-dike and separated from the shoreline by a 100-150-meter channel, in Taguig and Muntinlupa.

While Villar declined to give a timeline on when the project could be offered for bidding again, he said the government still intends to pursue it.

Apart from the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike, he said his department is also studying other projects which could be implemented under the PPP scheme.

“We have others we are studying now. But the government has resources. We can implement projects even if such are not PPPs,” he said.