Flagship PPP program suffers setback

THE AQUINO administration’s public private partnership (PPP) program suffered a blow Tuesday after publicly listed Megawide Construction Corp. said it was moving to terminate an P8.7-billion deal for the crucial modernization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center due to years of delays by the Department of Health.

The project mainly involves the construction of a new 700-bed “super-specialty tertiary” medical center in Quezon City. Along with other possible healthcare-related PPPs, it now faces an uncertain future after Megawide said it was exiting the deal.

PPP Center executive director Cosette Canilao said Tuesday that the agency was preparing a list of options, which could include a rebidding exercise, that would be presented to Malacañang and the economic cluster.

Megawide, which has bagged other PPP projects such as the P17.5-billion Mactan Cebu International Airport, won the 25-year healthcare PPP project in late 2013. But since that time, the DOH, which has undergone a leadership change over the past year, had yet to issue the key certificate of possession.

“Until last Friday, the certificate of possession hasn’t been turned over to us yet. It’s been too long,” Louie Ferrer, Megawide chief marketing and corporate information officer, said in a text message Tuesday.

Megawide said in a stock exchange filing Tuesday that subsidiary Megawide World Citi Consortium Inc. already served a so-called notice of termination of the build-operate-transfer (BOT) agreement to the DOH.

It said in a separate statement that the decision to terminate was not “made lightly.”

“We participated in the tender with the belief that our fellow Filipinos deserve an efficient hospital facility to complement the care and service already shown by the staff of [Philippine Orthopedic Center],” Megawide said. “Despite difficulties, it is a project that we continue to believe in. We continue to support the DOH and this administration in their vision for inclusive healthcare for all Filipinos.”

A DOH spokesperson was unable to immediately reply to a request for comment Tuesday to explain the almost two-year delay.

Earlier briefing materials from the PPP showed that the modernized Philippine Orthopedic Center was to rise in the National Kidney and Transplant Institute compound along East Avenue, Quezon City. The existing orthopaedic facility located on Banawe Avenue, Quezon City, has not had any major renovation since it was built in 1963.

Moreover, the project is expected to result in better and faster services for about 268,000 patients annually by the end of the BOT contract, the PPP Center said.