Five China state firms cornering DPWH bids for longest bridge

China is manipulating the bidding for the Philippines’ longest bridge. Five state-owned firms are tendering for the P210-billion, 32.15-kilometer Bataan-Cavite span.

The five bids are not independent. They are coordinated to be 20 to 30 percent below market rate. China will subsidize the losses.

On paper, it looks like healthy competition. In reality, they are one and the same bidder – the Chinese government.

Multiple bids from the same government do not promote fair competition. They only create an illusion of choice.

It’s like the Discayas fielding five of their nine construction outfits to bid for the same flood control project. After bagging it they take the money and run.

New Sec. Vince Dizon should look into this DPWH mess that he inherited. The Philippine Competition Commission must scrutinize the opening of bids late this month.

There are eight bidders. Five are Chinese, three Filipino.

The Chinese are China Harbor Engineering Co., Beijing Urban Construction Group Ltd., China Wu Yi Ltd., Shou Road & Bridge Group and Human Road & Bridge-China Civil Engineering Joint Venture.

They are conspiring to elbow out Filipinos POSCO E&C-Sta. Clara Int’l Corp. JV, EEI Corporation-PMI JV and D.M. Consunji Inc.

All major Chinese builders fall under Beijing’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). They share the same lenders: Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank. Also the same insurer: Sinosure.

That invites disaster. SASAC contractors bid low but projects are often substandard in materials and workmanship. Examples:

• In Ecuador, the Coca-Codo Sinclair Dam was built by multiple Chinese state-owned enterprises. Thousands of cracks appeared within three years. None of the Chinese contractors took responsibility.

• In Montenegro, China Road & Bridge Corporation built the Bar-Boljare motorway. With a $944-million bid, it was only able to finish 41 kilometers – 130 kilometers short of required. To finish the project, it demanded another $1 billion.

• In Kenya, the Kenyatta International Convention Center renovation was estimated at 1.94 billion Shilling, but ballooned to 3.2 billion Shilling due to under-specifications.

• In Nigeria, the Changjiang Construction Nigerian Ltd. renovated Kogi Specialist Hospital, later found to be substandard.

• In Vietnam, Chinese contractors built Da Nang-Quang Ngai Expressway Phase 2. Courts later ordered the builders to recompense Vietnam $18.7 million for low quality output.

• In Indonesia, several Chinese state firms bid low to bag the Jakarta-Bandung highspeed railway. They couldn’t finish it, so the Indonesian government had to put in $2 billion more.

Chinese state firms are notorious for bribery. In 2009, the World Bank blacklisted China State Construction Engineering Corp. and China Geo Engineering Corp. for bid collusion in Philippine roadworks. Both are subsidiaries of China Road & Bridge Corp. that bungled Montenegro.

In 2012, Dalian Rail Corp. bribed DOTr execs P190 million to supply 48 MRT-3 coaches worth P3.8 billion. All 48 were faulty, undersized, overweight, unusable.

The Bataan-Cavite Interlink Bridge will cross over Manila Bay from Mariveles to Naic. Done right, it will be an iconic Filipino opus. BCIB will be 15 times longer than the Leyte-Samar San Juanico bridge.

Awarding all the construction packages to Chinese firms is dangerous. Accountability vanishes. If problems arise, liability bounces between “sister companies,” leaving proponents negotiating not with a contractor, but with the Chinese government. China notoriously ignores reason when its interest is at stake.

In this huge bridge work, unfair subsidies from the Chinese government edge out Filipino contractors. The latter are bound by real commercial risks and operate without subsidies.

There’s little trickle-down to the Philippine economy from Chinese projects. Records show that in the Binondo-Intramuros Bridge construction, over 80 percent of materials, labor and all design works came from China. Filipino engineers and builders learned and profited little.

If profits derived from a project are all repatriated, then every peso of repayment becomes a Philippine remittance to China. Bataan-Cavite Bridge funding will be loaned by Asian Development Bank and Beijing’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

If done by Communist China, this bridge will open the Philippines to espionage – even sabotage. Mariveles in Bataan hosts a Navy anti-submarine facility and a Coast Guard harbor. Naic is beside the Navy’s main base in Sangley Point.

Chinese law obligates its companies and citizens to participate in overseas surveillance and to keep such activities secret. China state firms are led by Communist Party cadres. Although reporting to SASAC, they all are under the CCP Central Military Commission.

It’s one thing to be manipulated by crooked Filipino politicos. It’s another to be duped by a foreign government – more so one grabbing Filipino sovereign waters.

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