AEDC still eyeing NAIA-3 takeover

A firm controlled by taipan Lucio Tan is willing to pay the government $200 million for the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA-3).

Tan’s lawyer Eduardo Ceniza said Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp. (AEDC) is still interested in the bailout despite NAIA-3’s reported structural defects.

"AEDC is willing to pay government $200 million for the terminal despite the defects uncovered recently by the two engineering firms," he said.

Under their offer, AEDC will pay the government $200 million to assume the contract of the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco) to operate the terminal and to take charge of efforts to prepare it for full commercial operations.

AEDC had called on the government to withdraw its "ill-advised" expropriation of the NAIA-3.

Ceniza said the terminal was built on government land, and to take possession, that government merely has to file an ejectment case against Piatco.

"Our offer is really a win-win solution for all the parties who have interest in the terminal except maybe for Piatco claiming $565 million for the structure but which would not open its book of accounts," he said.

By paying the P3-billion downpayment for their expropriation last year, the government has expropriated a structurally defective terminal, he added.

A couple of weeks ago, General Manager Alfonso Cusi of the Manila International Airport Authority had called off the scheduled "soft opening" of NAIA-3 later this month when the two engineering firms hired to conduct a structural audit of the terminal, recommended the postponement.

It was the second time that MIAA postponed the "soft opening" of the terminal.

Last year, the first scheduled opening did not push through after a 100-square meter portion of the terminal’s ceiling in the arrival lobby hall collapsed a mere four days before the event.

Ceniza said AEDC believes that the investment claims amounting to $1 billion against the Philippines filed by Piatco and Fraport AG pending before the International Chamber of Commerce and International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) would be dismissed if the government withdraws the expropriation case it filed before the Pasay City Regional Trial Court.

"AEDC maintains that the government had erred in filing the expropriation case to gain possession of the NAIA-3 because government owns the land where the terminal was built. Government only has to file an ejectment case against Piatco," he said.

AEDC was formed by a group of six leading Filipino-Chinese businessmen, namely Lucio Tan, George S. K. Ty, Alfonso Yuchengco, Henry Sy, John Gokongwei Jr. and Andrew Gotianun after former President Fidel Ramos in the mid-1990s asked them to pool their resources and build a new world-class airport terminal.

Taking up the challenge, the AEDC submitted an unsolicited proposal for the airport construction project.

However, the Piatco consortium submitted a counter-proposal to the AEDC bid during a mandatory "Swiss challenge" conducted by the government.

The Piatco consortium’s counter bid was later chosen as the better offer.

In late December 2004, the Supreme Court voided the build-operate-transfer contract of Piatco after finding that numerous amendments in the contract made it inimical to public interest.

Several days after the ruling, the government took over the facility and filed the expropriation case before the Pasay RTC.