San Miguel to scrap P100-B Pasig River tollway?

San Miguel [SMC 101.40, down 1.6%] [link] clarified a report that it planned to scrap its P100 billion Pasig River tollway project, saying that it “contemplates not to proceed with [the project]”, and that it is “evaluating the financial and technical viability of the construction of [the project]”. SMC said that this is in response to the “prevailing sentiment expressed by the public on the Project”.

 

MB bottom-line: "Contemplates not to proceed” doesn’t read to me as though SMC considers this project dead. To me, the statement reads as though SMC is now considering the fact that the public generally hates the plan as just one of several factors, but has yet to fully recompute with the sentiment factor included. Based on Ramon Ang’s quote, he understands that people think the proposed elevated skyway along the river “looks bad”, and while he says that he’s “very sensitive to the opinion of the public”, that’s not in perfect alignment with what this clarification is saying. Either SMC thesaurused itself into saying something it didn’t mean to say, or the clarification tried to walk back Mr. Ang’s statements as lightly as it could.

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