Group led by Bayani Fernando, Megawide win bid for school-building PPP projects

Two classes share one blackboard to save space due to lack of classrooms at the Payatas Elementary School in Quezon city. A group led by former Metro Manila Development Authority chief Bayani Fernando and Megawide Corp. on Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012, won the bidding for public-private-partnership projects for school-building construction involving about 9,300 classrooms. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

MANILA, Philippines—A group led by former Metro Manila Development Authority chief Bayani Fernando and publicly listed construction firm Megawide Corp. on Thursday won the bidding for public-private-partnership projects (PPP) for school-building construction involving about 9,300 classrooms costing a total of P16.3 billion.

Fernando’s consortium of BF Corp. and Riverbanks Development Corp. bagged the school-building PPP (package A) for Region 1 with an annual lease payment cost to the Department of Education of about P344.6 million a year for 10 years, DepEd Undersecretary Francis Varela said in an interview. BF is thus expected to get about P3.45 billion over a period of 10 years.

Megawide won the PPP packages (A and B) for Regions 3 and 4A, respectively, worth P523 million and P760 million per annum, Varela said. These translate to P5.23 billion and P7.6 billion respective earnings for Megaworld staggered over 10 years.

These figures represent the annual lease payment to be made by DepEd to the winning bidders within the next 10 years in exchange for the construction of the school buildings.  The 9,300 classrooms refer to the number of classrooms to be built within the next 16 months for the three packages.

The cost includes the building as well as the furniture and toilets as well as fixtures such as electric fans and blackboards.

About 69 percent of the classrooms to be built are two-story buildings while 31 percent are single-story units.

In light of DepEd’s cost of money if it were to spend for the building of the classrooms itself, the government expects to achieve 15-percent efficiency gain from this project. Taking into account this efficiency gain, Varela said, the cost per classroom and averaging the cost of one- and two-story buildings will thus amount to about P1.1 million per room.