DOTC set to decide on Incheon’s participation in Cebu airport bid

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) is set decide next week the participation of Incheon International Airport Corp. of South Korea in the P17.5-billion Mactan-Cebu International Airport terminal project.

DOTC Undersecretary Jose Perpetuo Lotilla said in a text message that the agency’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) would decide on the complaints that Incheon would have an edge in the project as it conducted a feasibility study on the international gateway.

“I think early next week, decision might have to be made,” Lotilla said.

Manuel V. Pangilinan, chairman of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), earlier asked the DOTC to look into the participation of Incheon due to the alleged conflict of interest.

The company raised a concern about the fact that Incheon that has partnered with San Miguel Corp. conducted the feasibility study for the project.

“It’s not a complaint, we just pointed out that. I believed that Incheon did a feasibility study on the airport and submitted that study to the government, as I understand. So we we’re just raising that something the government might want to note because they could on both sides of the transactions,” Pangilinan earlier said.

Incheon was tapped by the DOTC to conduct a feasibility study and master plan of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport in 2010. Early this year, the DOTC also tapped the Korean airport operator for a P67 million contract for consulting services for completion works of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) terminal 3.

“We don’t know whether the government is using the study that Incheon prepared. So we just want to point that out,” Pangilinan said.

The Mactan-Cebu airport project involves the construction of a world-class passenger terminal building with a capacity of eight million passengers a year as well as the operation and maintenance of the old and new facilities include a 797-hectare property.