DOTr wants to privatize more port assets

The Department of Transportation wants to privatize more assets such as airports and seaports operated by its attached agencies.

Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said these would include assets operated and regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines and the Philippine Ports Authority.

Tugade declined to say which assets and described the plan as a general policy even as he acknowledged that this had been attempted by previous regimes with little success.

“The difference with this administration is political will,” Tugade said of the plan. He mentioned a soon-to-be inaugurated passenger terminal project in Cagayan de Oro as among those the government planned to privatize.

While the Aquino administration sought to privatize assets through its Public-Private Partnership Program, the Duterte administration took a different approach that recently involved more unsolicited proposals.

In recent months, big business groups have made bids for provincial airport assets. —MIGUEL R. CAMUS