Ayala seals road deal with toll firm

Conglomerate Ayala Corp. has sealed an agreement with the operator of South Luzon Expressway outlining a road linkage with the Ayala’s four-kilometer Daang Hari toll road project in southern Metro Manila.

PPP Center executive director Cosette Canilao said in a briefing Thursday that the memorandum of agreement between Ayala Corp. and South Luzon Tollway Corp., controlled by San Miguel Corp. and the Citra Group of Indonesia, was signed last week.

“The next move is for the DPWH [Department of Public Works and Highways] to buy the remaining right of way now that it’s signed,” she said.

The agreement would enable Ayala to proceed with the Daang-Hari project, the first public private partnership deal to be successfully auctioned off by the Aquino administration.

Ayala managing director John Eric Francia said last week that the successful signing would allow the conglomerate to go “full-blast” with construction.

He said the toll road, about a third of which has been built, would be opened by the fourth quarter of 2014.

South Luzon Tollways was earlier critical of Ayala’s new design proposal for the Daang-Hari link to Slex, as the company cited potential traffic problems. Those issues have now been ironed out with the signing of the memorandum of agreement.

The PPP deal was meant to ease traffic conditions in parts of Las Piñas and Muntinlupa. Ayala will operate the toll road for a period of 30 years. Miguel R. Camus