EDITORIAL - Delay in the name of prudence

If what has been reported in the news is true, that the Department of Transportation and Communication is all set to award the contract for the P17.5 billion Mactan Cebu International Airport expansion project very soon, then the DOTC cannot escape being accused of undue haste, and whatever that implies in the public mind.

True, the expansion project has long been delayed. But just as true is the fact that very real and hard questions have been raised about the track record of the foreign partner of the consortium that emerged as the highest bidder in the build-operate-transfer project.

As some officials correctly pointed out, delaying the project a few more months to buy time to sort all these questions out will ultimately be for the good of everyone. Better to clear the path ahead than get mired in unexpected snags born of unresolved issues.

As a matter of fact, both the Senate and the House of Representatives are conducting separate inquiries regarding the issues that have cropped up and it is only prudent that the project awaits the outcome of the twin investigations.

It is being argued by some that unnecessarily delaying big ticket projects such as this one will send the wrong signal to foreign contractors and other investors seeking to do business with local partners in the Philippines.

That may be true. But a far worse signal can be sent if, after having allowed the project to proceed despite unresolved issues, it gets to be stalled, or worse, aborted, in mid-stream because the unresolved issues have become simply unmanageable.

To this day, we have not fully recovered from the backlash of another airport project in Manila involving a German firm which had to be aborted due to controversies. Add a Czech accusation of extortion by influential people for a rail project, and the need to exercise prudence cannot be overemphasized.

Expanding the Mactan Cebu International Airport with an eye to making it meet modern travel demands is a most urgent need indeed. But meeting such urgency must not come at the expense of certainty about certain things, lest our inability to be satisfied by real answers will only make us regret with expensive sorrow.