DepEd to award PPP contract for classroom construction

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Education (DepEd) expects to award the public-private partnership (PPP) contract for classroom construction worth P16.5 billion next month.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro said that with the award of the PPP School Infrastructure Project (PSIP), the construction of 9,300 classrooms could start within the year.

"With all systems go under the PSIP scheme, I am confident that we will be able to achieve zero backlog in classrooms by 2013," said Luistro.

Of the six pre-qualified PSIP bidders, BF Corp.-Riverbanks Development Corp. Consortium and Citicore Holdings Investment, Inc.-Megawide Construction Corp. Inc., submitted technical and financial proposals for the PSIP last July 18.

As part of their technical proposal, each of the bidders constructed a 2-story, 4-classroom mockup in Sta. Isabel Elementary School and in Malolos Marine National High School in Bulacan.

A technical team consisting of the DepEd, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the Department of Labor and Employment's Occupational Health and Safety Center, and the Ernst and Young Consortium (DepEd PSIP's transaction adviser) inspected the compliance of the mockup structures against the PSIP's Minimum Performance Specification and Standards last week.

Upon acceptance of the classrooms, a ten-year lease period will commence where DepEd makes annual payments to the winning bidder. During the lease period, the winning bidder undertakes periodic maintenance activities on the classroom structures every 4.5-5 years, while the DepEd is responsible for the day to day wear and tear.

Education Undersecretary for Finance and Administration Francis Varela said that the P16.5 billion PSIP was just the first phase, and they could again conduct a bidding for another lot of 10,000 classrooms within this year.

The next phase of the PSIP will be implemented in the Visayas and Mindanao regions.

The PSIP is DepEd's aggressive move to use the PPP scheme to construct more than 9,000 classrooms, including school furniture and toilets, in 2,204 public schools in Regions 1, 3 and 4-A (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon).

The PSIP is the DepEd's first public private partnership project for education infrastructure, which will be awarded through competitive public bidding in accordance with the Build-Operate-and-Transfer (BOT) Law (RA 6957, as amended by RA 7718), and its Implementing Rules and Regulations.