Laguna dike bid submission delayed

The Department of Public Works and Highways pushed back the bid submission deadline for the massive Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike project by four months to November this year after most of the pre-qualified bidders sought an extension, department officials said.

DPWH head of PPP Service Ariel Angeles said in a text message that the new bid submission deadline for the public private partnership (PPP) project was now set on Nov. 6, 2015, instead of the original date of July 6 this year.

The extension would allow interested groups “to prepare and submit more competitive bids,” said Rafael Yabut, DPWH undersecretary and chair of the bids and awards committee.

The Laguna Lakeshore project, which has a project cost of P122.8 billion, is expected to draw bids from three groups.

These are San Miguel Corp. through San Miguel Holdings Corp.; Trident Infrastructure and Development Corp., or Team Trident, of Ayala Land Inc., SM Prime Holdings Inc., Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. and Megaworld Corp., and Alloy Pavi Hanshin LLEDP Consortium comprised of Malaysia’s MTD Group, South Korea’s Hanshin and the family of former senator Manuel Villar Jr.

Angeles said only San Miguel, which is also expected to submit an offer for the P35.4-billion Cavite-Laguna Expressway project today, did not seek any extension to the original July 6 bid submission deadline.

The three groups are vying for one of the more complex PPP deals rolled out since President Aquino launched his cornerstone infrastructure program in 2010.

It also comes with a large price tag. The Laguna Lakeshore deal’s project cost is about double the amount for the last largest PPP project, the P65-billion Light Rail Transit Line 1 Cavite extension.

The Laguna Lakeshore combines three major components: A 47-kilometer toll road, a flood control dike and a 700-hectare land reclamation project in Laguna Lake near Taguig and Muntinlupa.

Project documents from the DPWH showed that the expressway would link Taguig in Metro Manila and Los Baños, Laguna. The land reclamation part, as initially envision, would comprise a total of seven 100-hectare islands in Laguna Lake about 150-meters away from the shoreline near Taguig, Parañaque and Muntinlupa.