P24B elevated road project achievable, says proponent

The proposed elevated road project: ‘Doable’

San Miguel Corp.-backed Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp. (CMMTC) said only “ambitious” projects, such as its proposed overhead toll road, could solve big problems like the chronic congestion of Metro Manila’s thoroughfares.

“It is unfortunate that Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) has resorted to name-calling and obfuscation,” Shadik Wahono, president of CMMTC, said in a statement issued Tuesday.

He was reacting to MPTC’s statement saying that CMMTC’s toll road proposal to extend the Metro Manila Skyway to Balintawak, Quezon City—at a price of P24 billion—was impossible.

MPTC president Ramoncito Fernandez said in a recent interview that no credible construction company could build CMMTC’s proposed road at the company’s committed construction schedule of 30 months.

“MPTC might be unable to build and operate the SMC-Citra Toll Road at the project cost and toll rates cited, but CMMTC can and will,” Wahono said.

“Ambition is a good thing if it will redound to the benefit of the long-suffering Metro Manila commuters. The most-high-impact infrastructure projects resulted from ambition—the sincere desire to make a difference in the lives of others and not to merely accept conventional wisdom,” Wahono said.

He reiterated that the SMC-Citra Toll Road was the result of more than a decade of rigid financial and technical studies and models conducted by reputable international and domestic firms and these studies and models have validated the financial and technical usability of the project. “In other words, it is ambitious but achievable,” said Wahono.

Meeting project completion deadlines would be more problematic for MPTC’s Connector Road, Wahono said.

“The right-of-way acquisition of Segment 9 and 10 of NLEx alone will probably take five years to complete,” he said. Segments 9 and 10, which are not yet built, make up the so-called “Harbor Link Road” that will connect NLEx with the Tondo Port District.

The statement also noted that, contrary to MPTC’s misquoted amount of P11 billion, the 6.9-kilometer Skyway stage 2, which was started in May 2009, was completed in less than 24 months. Total project cost was P8.8 billion, P300-million lower than the initial budget.

“There is no reason for MPTC to be jealous and suspicious about the project cost for the Citra-PNCC alignment (CPA) because the design including the detailed traffic study was prepared together with very big and reputable engineering companies. In fact, these firms have done similar work with MPTC, so it would be irrational for MPTC to question the integrity of their own consultants,” the statement said.

Unlike MPTC, which has no track record in building elevated toll roads, Citra said it has more than 20 years of experience building, operating and maintaining elevated highways in the Philippines and Indonesia. Citra, in partnership with the largest construction company in the Philippines, DM Consunji, said it not only mitigated traffic disruption on Skyway ground level, but also finished stage 2, or Bicutan-Alabang link, way ahead of schedule and at a significantly lower price.

Motorists from Alabang can now reach the Makati central business district in 10 minutes.