MANILA, Philippines — Conglomerate San Miguel Corp. on Wednesday signed a contract with the government to build and operate a $15-billion international airport in Bulacan province, north of Manila, aimed at decongesting the overstretched gateway in the capital.
Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade and SMC President and COO Ramon Ang sealed the 50-year concession agreement for the Bulacan airport.
The project was awarded to SMC last month after the competitive challenge for its unsolicited proposal ended with no counterbids.
READ: No challengers: Government to award Bulacan airport project to San Miguel
“The airport will be built at no cost to government, and with no subsidies or guarantees,” Ang said. “This is the only meaningful project in the last many years"
Under SMC’s offer, the company will finance, design, construct, operate and maintain the airport — to be known as the New Manila International Airport.
Once completed, the Bulacan airport will accommodate 100 to 200 million travellers annually — higher than the Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s 31-million-passenger capacity.
The new facility in Bulacan — which will have four parallel runways — is expected to be operational within four to six years from the start of construction, which is targeted to begin in December this year.
The Bulacan Airport is part of the “basket of solutions” of the Duterte government to ease congestion at the aging NAIA, which was rated as among the world’s worst airports.
As of 11:24 a.m. Wednesday, shares in SMC were up 0.81% or P1.40 to P174 apiece.
Not entirely unopposed
Around 700 families in the coastal village of Barangay Taliptip in Bulakan town are expected to be displaced once the construction for the airport city project begins.
Residents, composed mainly of fishermen, lamented Ang’s conglomerate has yet to provide them with the masterplan of the project, which includes the extent of reclamation and the relocation site for affected residents.
SMC earlier assured Bulakan residents of their relocation and livelihood, saying the “success of the airport project is linked to well-being of surrounding communities.”
But residents told Philstar.com that only about 300 housing units will be allotted and those who expressed opposition to the project were threatened to be excluded from the relocation.
Aside from displacing hundreds of families and affecting the food security of the entire Manila Bay, the aerotropolis project is also feared to spur intense flooding in the area.