The Department of Public Works and Highways is likely to move the bid submission date of the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike project to August from July, a government official said.
This was because the submission of qualification documents, which is the first step, had been postponed twice.
Most recently, the qualification deadline for the P123-billion public private partnership project was moved back by one month, or from Jan. 14 this year to Feb. 27.
PPP Center executive director Cosette Canilao said the move was due to requests from interested bidders, who said that more time was needed to prepare their requirements. The qualification process is a key step in determining which firms are capable of undertaking the PPP project, the largest thus far rolled out under the Aquino administration.
Canilao noted that because of the one-month postponement in submission of qualification documents, the bid submission, set on July 6, would likely be pushed back “by the same [amount] of time.”
The project has so far drawn 24 prospective bidders, including some of the country’s biggest conglomerates and property developers.
Among the companies are Ayala Corp., San Miguel Corp., Metro Pacific Investments Corp., Malaysia’s MTD Group, JG Summit Holdings, Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Megaworld Corp., LT Group Inc., GT Capital Holdings, Filinvest Land, Megawide Construction Corp., France’s Egis Projects S. A. and Macquarie Securities (Phil.) Inc.
The Laguna Lakeshore project has several key features: a 47-kilometer tollroad running from Taguig in Metro Manila to Los Baños, Laguna on top of a flood-control dike and a reclamation component involving 700 hectares of land in Laguna lake near Taguig and Muntinlupa for “mixed-use” developments.
The land reclamation was included to make the project more attractive to investors, the PPP Center announced previously.
Much is riding on the success of the Laguna Lakeshore project, which is the DPWH’s next PPP deal after the controversial P35.4 billion Cavite Laguna Expressway project in 2014. The Calax project is set to undergo a rebidding process this year.
The government has awarded eight PPP deals so far, the largest being the P65-billion Light Rail Transit Line 1 extension to Cavite province, which was won by a consortium led by Filipino conglomerates Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and Ayala Corp.