SMC, Metro Pacific spar over elevated highway deal

MANILA, Philippines—Rival conglomerates San Miguel Corp. and the Metro Pacific group are once more trading barbs over a major deal, with each claiming to have a superior proposal for an elevated roadway meant to decongest Metro Manila’s streets.

In a statement, the president of SMC-backed Citra-PNCC said their P24-billion proposal was superior to their rival’s because it would help regular commuters by decongesting EDSA, which is the metropolis’ main north-south thoroughfare.

In contrast, the connector road proposal of Metro Pacific Tollway Corp. is a bypass road designed for cargo trucks.

“That’s why our alignment has eight exits—five more than the MPIC connector—to serve this purpose,” Citra president Shadik Wahono said. “You need to accommodate the traffic patterns of regular commuters who have varying points of origin and destination.”

He added that MPTC’s connector would never decongest EDSA because there were no convenient entry and exit points to serve as alternate route to EDSA and its entry-exit points were located away from major population centers in Metro Manila where commuters originate.

“Pure north-south traffic is non-existent. It’s the midpoints that are important,” Wahono said.

He pointed out that both projects would likely involve some level of traffic congestion and inconvenience to motorists but the MPTC connector road would involve the massive resettlement of informal settlers along the Philippine National Railways’ right of way areas, thus entailing more delays.

The Citra chief said this was not an issue for the so-called Citra-PNCC Alignment (CPA) project as it would use the median of broad avenues.

Last week, a senior executive of Metro Pacific took potshots at the Citra project, asserting that their connector road plan “is superior in many ways” to the plan of the Indonesian firm, whose track record, he said, was best remembered for its “implementation delays.”

Luigi Bautista, senior vice president of MNTC, said the design and alignment of the connector road has been adjudged superior by a study of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), besting other designs, including that of the Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3.

Citra’s CPA will have six lanes, while MNTC’s connector road will have four lanes, due to the limitations of the PNR’s right of way space.

“Based on MPTC’s own submissions, its connector road will charge P9 per lane kilometer or a total amount of approximately P119 for the 13.2-kilometer stretch of Quirino to 5th Avenue above the PNR tracks,” Wahono explained. “However, since motorists would also need to traverse segments 9 and 10, with a total distance of another 8 kilometers, under an open-system of charging similar to NLEx today, motorists would need to pay an additional P45 to use segments 9 and 10, bringing total tariff for motorist to P164.”