Two submit bids for DepEd project

MANILA, Philippines - Two of the six major groups prequalified by the Department of Education (DepEd) to participate in the government’s P16.5-billion classroom construction program under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme have submitted technical and financial bids to build more than 9,300 classrooms under a build-lease-transfer arrangement.

Education Undersecretary for Finance and Administration Francisco M. Vanrela said that they are ready to start the evaluation of the technical bids of the two joint venture firms, namely the Citicore Holdings Investments, Inc.-Megawide Construction Corp. Inc.; and BF Corp.-Riverbanks Development Corp. consortium.

Megawide is a listed construction company known to be the builder of many of the residential condominium towers of Henry Sy Sr.’s SM Development Corp., as well as the lead contractor in a number of SM’s new mall construction.

BF Corp. is a big construction company firm founded by former Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and Marikina City Mayor Bayani “BF” Fernando, that has built countless high rise office and residential towers and has also been involved as lead contractor in a number of large SM mall construction projects.

The DepED SBAC conducted an inspection on the completeness of the sets of financial and technical bid documents submitted by the two joint venture firms last Wednesday, the deadline of submission of bids set by the DepEd for the six prequalified groups.

Varela has set the inspection of the Citicore-Megawide joint venture’s classroom and schoolbuilding‚ “mock-ups‚” or models next Monday, and the BF-Riverbanks on Tuesday.

“We won’t open the financial bids until we check their technical compliance (of the bids),” Varela said, saying that the check will look into the compliance with the DepEd’s technical specifications for the classrooms and school buildings, as well as the toilets and school furniture.

The assembly or construction of a sample two-storey, two classroom-building is required under the PSIP technical bid evaluation process.

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 Regons 1, 3 and 4-A (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon).