Megawide/GMR: Starting on the right foot

Over the weekend, I already knew from my sources within the Department of Transportation & Communications that the multi-billion New Mactan Airport Terminal Project was awarded to the winning bidder Megawide/GMR consortium. But I didn't take it up because my report on our Big Bike convention for me was far more important than this news item. However as he already warned the DOTC and Megawide/GMR, Sen. Serge Osmeña III filed a Temporary Restraining Order to the Supreme Court to try and stop this project for his more than obvious selfish and vested interest. Let's hope that the SC will throw out this petition.

Cebuanos still do not know Megawide/GMR and it is for this reason why Sen. Serge is trying to stop them in favor of the second bidder, Filinvest/Changi group. But his main concern was the financial capability of the Megawide/GMR group because of many questions in their other projects. These were questions that the DOTC should have asked or Filinvest/Changi should have brought out in the open before the bidding. Unfortunately, against the bidding rules, these were exposed after the bidding was done.

So it is now a matter of credibility. If the DOTC has given this project to the Megawide/GMR group, now we expect them to put in their money of P14.4 billion into this project, so they can proceed in rehabilitating the old Mactan Cebu International Airport and start construction with the new MCIA Terminal. Sen. Serge Osmeña's fears are about this group's financial capability... so let's see the Megawide/GMR group put their money where their mouths are... and silence Sen. Osmeña to embarrassment.

Meanwhile, yesterday The Freeman headlined the news that my good friend Kenneth Cobonpue, the world renowned designer (whom the DOTC also tapped to refurbish the tattered image of NAIA terminal) has been approached by the Megawide/GMR group to give a Cebuano flair to our new international airport. In my book, this is a step in the right direction by the Megawide/GMR group when it taps our local talents to the delight of Cebuanos. They should get more Cebuanos to be involved in this construction after all, this is an international airport for Cebu and built by Cebuanos even if the Megawide/GMR group does not come from Cebu.

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It's great to be back home after a long weekend of riding our big bikes in Zamboanga del Norte (ZaNorte) and to Misamis Occidental last Sunday evening for our ferry ride back to Cebu via TransAsia 3. Last Saturday, I met up with an old friend of mine at the Ariana Hotel, the famous George Tapan, celebrity photographer (he was given a special award by National Geographic magazine) whom I knew during our days when I used to write for Mabuhay Magazine when it was then published by my mentor, the late Sir Max Soliven. George Tapan was his number one photographer and has moved on to many other endeavors.

While in Dipolog, he asked my bike group, the Easy Riders to pose for a coffee table magazine for Dipolog City, and we obliged by riding along their soon to be famous Boulevard that could rival the famous Dewey Boulevard in its heyday. Alas when Dewey Bouelevard was renamed Roxas Boulevard it stopped to become a boulevard because of the numerous reclamation projects like the one for the Cultural Center of the Philippines and later the reclamation where the Mall of Asia is currently located.

So while doing George Tapan a favor by posing as his subject for the Dipolog Boulevard, he also did the Easy Riders a favor by having this photo in the coffee table book for posterity. It was a great 20th Annual Convention of the National Federation of Motorcycle Clubs (NFMC) in the Philippines and the biggest in attendance to date. But for the Easy Rider Motorcycle club, the ride to Sindangan last Saturday and back to Dipolog, then our 140 kilometer ride to Ozamis City to take the TransAsia Ferry 3 to Cebu was a great road trip... great roads up there in northern Mindanao which will certainly exhort us to do a return trip.

Incidentally, one of the most scenic portions in our road trip from Dipolog to Ozamis City via Oroqueta City is the tree-lined highway that's so many kilometers long. Whenever we past these tree-lined roads, it reminded me of the short tree-line stretch as you enter the town of Carcar, which we heard that the Department of Public Works & Highways are planning to cut down. These are centuries old trees that my late grandfather Capt. Valeriano Segura planted during his time as the first District Engineer for the Public Works and Highways during the Commonwealth times. I just hope that the DPWH can learn to respect that only God can make a tree. It is we crazy humans who mercilessly cut them down for our selfish reasons.

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