7 firms eye P2.5-B bus terminal

MANILA, Philippines - Seven firms including the country’s largest conglomerates are set to bid for the proposed P2.5-billion Integrated Transport System (ITS) Project — Southwest Terminal under the Aquino administration’s public private partnership (PPP) program.

Cosette Canilao, executive director of the PPP Center, said interested bidders include San Miguel Corp., Ayala Land Inc., Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., and Robinsons Land Inc.

Canilao said other interested companies were D.M. Wenceslao and Associates Inc., Vicente T. Lao Construction, and French-owned Egis Projects Philippines.

The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) has given interested companies until May 15 to submit their bids for the 2.9-hectare Southwest terminal project located at the Coastal Road Terminal along the Manila-Cavite Expressway.The terminal would connect passengers coming from Cavite to other urban transport systems such as the future Light Rail Transit line 1 (LRT) South Extension to Bacoor in Cavite, city bus, taxi, and other public utility vehicles plying Metro Manila.

The project would include a passenger terminal building, arrival and departure bays, public information system, ticketing and baggage handling facilities and park-ride facilities.

The DOTC pointed out that the proponent would finance, design, construct, operate, and maintain the ITS project for a period of 35 years.

To qualify to bid for the project, the DOTC stated in the invitation that a bidder must have local or international experience within the last 10 years and have completed one or more eligible projects with a cumulative cost of at least P2 billion and with capacity of at least 300 parking bays for vehicles.

Furthermore, the agency added that a bidder should have local or international experience in the operation and maintenance of one or more bus terminals with a cumulative bus parking capacity of at least 40 passenger buses with a minimum parking capacity of at least 20 buses in each terminal.

A bidder could also have one or more commercial complexes, shopping malls, airport terminals, parking complexes, or freight terminals with a cumulative parking capacity of at least 160 parking bays for land surface transport vehicles and with a minimum capacity of 80 parking bays over the last three consecutive years.

For its financial capability, the DOTC said a bidder should have a net worth of at least P600 million and should be able to show proof that it could raise P1.4 billion for the proposed terminal project.

The P7.7-billion ITS project was one of the seven major infrastructure projects worth P184.2 billion approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

The project involves the establishment of  three mass transportation intermodal terminals at the outskirts of Metro Manila – one in the north of EDSA serving passengers to and from northern Luzon and two in the south serving passengers to and from Laguna or Batangas side and those to and from the Cavite side.