Gov’t ready for settlement with Piatco

The government expects to settle all of its claims to a controversial $650-million Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA-3) project and hopes to open the mothballed facility by next year, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said the other day.

He told a business conference that separate arbitration proceedings over the airport terminal in Singapore and Washington would last "probably another year."

However, Purisima said the government was completing the construction of the terminal and had deposited money in a bank to be used if courts uphold the expropriation of the terminal, built by the consortium Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco).

This would allow the terminal to be used by the public as early as this year if the legal problems can be resolved, he added.

Purisima added that there were "private entities trying to resolve this outside of the court" but he would not elaborate.

The terminal has been mothballed since 2003 when President Arroyo revoked the developing consortium’s "build-operate-transfer" contract with the government on the grounds that her deposed predecessor Joseph Estrada had illegally renegotiated certain terms in 1998.

Estrada was toppled in a bloodless, military-backed popular revolt in 2001 and is on trial for unrelated charges of corruption.

One of the consortium’s members, Fraport AG of Germany, has been seeking compensation of $465 million for the terminal project and the case is currently under international arbitration in Washington.

Piatco, which has asked the government to reimburse the money spent to build the terminal, has a separate arbitration case in Singapore.

The terminal, which was designed to handle 13 million passengers every year, was originally scheduled to open in late 2002 to ease passenger traffic at the two existing terminals at Manila’s airport.

The government said in December that it was taking over the terminal and would start operating it when it was fully completed.

Manila had initially offered a down payment to the consortium for the terminal but the Supreme Court later suspended this payment. A case on the expropriation has also been filed in the Supreme Court. — AFP<