MacroAsia keen on Sangley bid

MANILA, Philippines — Lucio Tan’s MacroAsia Corp. is teaming up with potential partners for its bid for the development of Sangley airport into a world-class international gateway.

MacroAsia president Joseph Chua said the company is likely to team up with other companies to come up with a potential bid for the airport project.

“Definitely it’s a big project. We won’t do it alone,” Chua said.

“They extended the bidding deadline so that gives us more time to line up the proper...the consortium,” he said.

MacroAsia, through its wholly owned subsidiary MacroAsia Properties Development Corp., was one of the seven companies that bought bid documents for the Sangley Point International Airport Project.

The others were Metro Pacific Investments Corp., Prime Asset Ventures Inc. of real estate magnate and former senator Manuel Villar Jr., Philippine Airport Ground Solutions Inc., Langham Properties Inc., Chinese Communications Construction Co., and Mosveldtt Law Offices. Megawide Construction Corp. accessed the documents through another party who bought it on their behalf.

Deadline to submit proposals has now been moved to Dec. 17 due to the request for extension by the bidders, according to Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla.

MacroAsia chief financial officer Amador Sendin said the company is among those who sought for the submission deadline to be moved to a later date.

He said the company is likely to submit a bid.

“We are working on the bid,” Sendin said.

The Tan empire is also involved in the plan to rehabilitate, operate, and expand the congested Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

The Tan-led Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp. is a member of a group of seven conglomerates dubbed as the NAIA consortium.
Chua said there should be no conflict between the two airports.

He said development of Sangley into an international airport is viable as the Philippines can have multiple airports.

“There’s always no conflict between NAIA and Sangley because most people are not aware that although there is close proximity, the aerodrome can be shared so it’s just a matter of management. Plus, if you look at the runway, it’s same direction,” he said.
“The Philippines, we don’t have enough landing slots, we don’t have enough airports. So we have 106 million people, we don’t have enough airports. So that’s why the government has a lot of infrastructure projects, so there’s no fear of excess capacity,” Chua said.

The Sangley Point International Airport Project is being undertaken by the Cavite government under the Public-Private Partnership Code, which will no longer require the approval of the National Economic and Development Authority for implementation.
The winning bidder, which will be developing the Sangley Airport into a world-class international gateway together with the Cavite provincial government, will be undertaking the construction of the airport and its facilities.

The project is in support of the Department of Transportation’s multi-airport strategy to decongest NAIA, the country’s main international gateway, which is now operating over its capacity.