By Lawrence Agcaoili (The Philippine
Star) | Updated July 15, 2014 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - The tandem of
conglomerate Ayala Corp. and Aboitiz Land Inc. has asked Malacanang that the
consortium be allowed to participate in the ongoing investigation on the
recently concluded bidding for the P35.4 billion Cavite – Laguna expressway
project.
Jose Eric Francia, managing director
of Ayala, informed the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the
Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp. (PDEX) that Team Orion has submitted a
Motion to Intervene to the Office of the President.
It would be recalled that Malacañang
issued a “Stay Order” last June 30 preventing the Department of Public Works
and Highways (DPWH) from implementing a resolution dated June 11 disqualifying
a unit of diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) from the bidding of
the public private partnership (PPP) project.
“The Motion is being sought by the
Consortium to allow it to participate in any proceedings to be conducted in
connection with the stay order imposed by the Office of the President on the
disqualification of one of the bidders by the DPWH,” Francia stated in the
letter dated July 10.
Team Orion, a 50-50 joint venture
between Ayala’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Inc. and Aboitiz Land, was one of
the four prequalified bidders that submitted bids to the DPWH last June 2 while
bidders included SMC’s Optimal Infrastructure Development Inc., MP CALLA
Holdings Inc. of infrastructure giant Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC),
and Malaysian-owned MTD Alloy Philippines.
During the submission of bids, the three
bidders questioned the flaw in the validity period of the P355-million bid
security submitted by Optimal Infrastructure.
After a careful review, the agency’s
Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) headed by DPWH undersecretary Rafael Yabut
issued a four-page resolution dated June 11 disqualifying the SMC unit from the
opening of the financial bids scheduled last June 13.
The resolution stated that SMC failed
to comply with two provisions of the Instruction to Bidders (ITB) particularly
Section 6.1 on the form of bid security as well as Section 6.2 covering the
validity and purpose.
The provision states that the bid
security required to be submitted as part of the bid proposal must be an
irrevocable standby letter of credit in the amount of P355 million without
modification.
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