San Miguel says bid for Calax ‘intimidated’ competitors
MANILA, Philippines — Conglomerate San Miguel Corp. urged the government to consider its bid for the Cavite Laguna Expressway public private partnership deal ahead of a potential decision Monday, a statement showed Sunday.
The company, whose bid package was questioned because of a deficiency in terms of the validity of its bid bond, said the government, through implementing agency Department of Public Works and Highways, should instead focus on maximizing competition.
In its statement, San Miguel cited comments from its toll road executive Mark Dumol, himself a former senior public works official.
Dumol reiterated that the complaints of some bidders were “understandable” considering that San Miguel has always been known in full support of the government’s privatization efforts through its aggressive bids.
“Are they intimidated by our financial bid that they now choose to find the tiniest fault in the bid submission?” the statement quoted Dumol as saying.
Dumol added that San Miguel’s aggressive bid in 2013 for the NAIA Expressway PPP, where the company offered an upfront payment of P11 billion, “forced its competitors to sharpen their pencils.”
That offer, he said, helped set a template for future bids, including mthat of the P17.5-billion Mactan Cebu International Airport, which was awarded this year to the consortium of Megawide Construction Corp. and India’s GMR Infrastructure, which offered a P14.4-billion payment to win the project.
The 47-kilometer Cavite Laguna Expressway last June 2 drew bids from all four pre-qualified groups, which included San Miguel’s Optimal Infrastructure Development, Malaysia’s MTD Group, MPCALA Holdings (Metro Pacific Tollways Corp.) and Team Orion, of Ayala Corp. and Aboitiz Land Inc.
Earlier, San Miguel and its bank ANZ have clarified that the bid security of Optimal Infrastructure Development “is fully compliant and fully enforceable.” It said the clarification corrected the four-day deficiency of the validity of its bid security.
MPCALA Holdings, which said the bid rules must be followed strictly, has been the most vocal in seeking the disqualification of San Miguel.
Dumol said he was confident that the DPWH and the PPP Center would decide on the merits and would “not be swayed by underhanded maneuvering because it has always espoused a policy of encouraging wider bid competition.”
“The entity that submits the highest financial bid to the government wins,” Dumol noted.
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