MAILBOX: No partnership

With reference to The Philippine STAR article entitled “MPIC to further expand tie-up with Spain’s Indra” (Business, page 4) published Monday, 29 September 2014, we would like to call your attention to the second paragraph of the third column of the said story, to wit:

“It (AF Consortium) has also partnered with Indra for the bidding of the P3.44-billion Land Transportation Office (LTO) information technology system project to make it easier for authorities to recover stolen vehicles, trace smuggled vehicles, prevent double registration and monitor unregistered vehicles.”

For the record, the AF Consortium is composed only of the following firms: AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., BPI Card Finance Corp., Globe Telecom Inc., Metro Pacific Investments Corp., Meralco Financial Services Corp., and Smart Communications Inc. The AF Consortium has since been incorporated into AFCS, Inc., the vehicle meant to deliver the Automated Fare Collection System (AFCS) Public-Private Partnership project owned by the consortium members who are, in turn, now shareholders.

Moreover, AFCS, Inc. has not partnered with Indras Systemas SA to jointly undertake any project.

We would appreciate a correction at the soonest possible time to disabuse any possible misinformation this oversight may have caused. Your kindest consideration will be most appreciated.

Sincerely,

Celso Bernard G. Lopez

Chief Operating Office

AF Consortium