DPWH submits Calax project documents to Malacañang

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has submitted to Malacañang all the documents pertaining to the controversy surrounding the bidding of the P35.4-billion ($819.69 million*) Cavite-Laguna (Calax) expressway project.

The agency has already forwarded the documents needed by the Office of the President (OP) to decide on the appeal made by diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corporation, DPWH Secretary Rogelio Singson said in a text message Wednesday, July 23.

“We did submit documents the OP legal wanted,” Singson said.

Team Orion, a 50-50 joint venture between Ayala’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corporation and Aboitiz Land, wrote the OP, seeking for the dismissal of San Miguel’s appeal.

San Miguel’s Optimal Infrastructure Development Inc. was disqualified by the DPWH due to a non-compliant bid security.

AC Infrastructure Executive Vice President Noel Kintanar said they are urging Malacañang to immediately lift and dissolve the “stay order” issued on June 30, stopping the DPWH from implementing the June 11 resolution disqualifying Optimal Infrastructure from the bidding for the public-private partnership (PPP) project.

San Miguel should have followed the process of appeal and should have paid P175 million ($405,268.10) to the agency’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) to appeal the case, Kintanar added.

‘Ghost’ bid

San Miguel spoiled its evidence after it withdrew its technical and financial bids envelopes from the DPWH Bids and Awards Committee during the opening of financial bids on June 13, Team Orion spokesperson Roman Azanza III said.

Azanza described San Miguel’s P20.105 billion ($465.61 million) offer – higher than Team Orion’s P11.659 billion ($269.73 million) – as a “dead” or “ghost” bid.

“… Its legally [a] non-existent bid – a bid that was returned unopened and that was, in a manner of speaking, officially dead, especially after appellant spoiled it as evidence,” Azanza added.

According to him, San Miguel has created a ghost bid in an attempt to marshal public opinion that its bid was P9 billion more than that of the highest bidder to pressure the government into reversing the bidding process.

He warned that the controversy puts in peril close to P900 billion ($20.84 billion) worth of major infrastructure projects being under the Aquino administration’s PPP scheme.

“We stand more to lose as a nation if we do not respect our own bidding rules and procedures. We need to keep the hard-earned confidence of investors in the stability and integrity of our public bidding process,” Azanza added. – Rappler.com