Group bucks MVP’s connector road plan

RIGHTS TO BUILD CONNECTOR ROAD Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp., operator of the Metro Manila Skyway, claims that it has the rights to build a connector road linking the two major toll road systems at the north and south of Metro Manila, based on a recent Department of Justice opinion.

Businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan’s bid for the contract to build the so-called “connector road” will not go as smoothly as he hoped for due to the pronouncement of a rival group that it had a more lawful claim to the deal.

The “connector road” is a planned project that will link the two major toll road systems at the north and south of Metro Manila.

Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), which is chaired by Pangilinan, recently submitted an unsolicited proposal to build the P17-billion project at no cost to the government.

However, Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp., operator of the Metro Manila Skyway, said a recent Department of Justice (DoJ) opinion said that the rights to build a connector road through Manila should go to the company.

“A connector road was part and parcel of our original proposal for the Skyway, which the government approved,” said Ed Nepomuceno, vice president of Citra’s operating subsidiary Skyway O&M Corp.

He said the group’s original proposal for the Skyway was made up of three parts. The first was for the construction of the original overhead road section from Makati to Bicutan. Skyway’s stage 2 was the recently completed extension of the original section to the Alabang viaduct in Muntinlupa.

The stage 2 extension linked the overhead section of the Skyway to the South Luzon Expressway (SLEx), which spans from Alabang to Calamba, Laguna.

Stage 3 of the Skyway proposal approved by the government was for the construction of an overhead tollroad from Makati to the North Luzon Expressway in Balintawak, Quezon City.

This differs from MPIC’s more recent proposal, which aims to build a similar overhead road from Skyway’s Makati end to the Manila port area in Tondo. This will eventually connect with MPIC’s planned “harbor link” road, which will be a part of the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx).

The MPIC group, through Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., holds the concession for NLEx.

Nepomuceno said the Citra group would oppose the MPIC proposal before the Department of Public Works and Highways using the DoJ opinion issued last month as its legal basis.

“We will pursue that project,” he said in a recent interview.

The connector road is the centerpiece of the MPIC group’s toll road development plan for the country. The MPIC group also operates the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx). MPIC has also expressed interest in bidding for other toll road projects that the government may want to privatize.