San Miguel Corporation - Engineering & Construction bid for 3 airport projects in the Philippines

Philippines—Diversifying conglomerate San Miguel Corp. is investing about $300 million to modernize and set up new tourism amenities at the Boracay Airport; the main gateway to the world-famous Boracay Island.

The conglomerate also plans to participate in the public bidding for the public-private partnership airport contracts for Palawan, Bohol and Caraga (Agusan).

The three airport projects were cited by President Aquino on Saturday during the inauguration of the SMC-backed Caticlan airport rehabilitation.

“When we join the bidding, the price becomes reasonable, so we’ll participate in all of them,” SMC president Ramon S. Ang told reporters at the sidelines of the inauguration of the airport project. It was earlier reported that SMC was likewise interested in the NAIA 3 airport terminal privatization.

By the time the Caticlan modernization project is completed by December 2013, it will accommodate three million tourists a year from only 500,000 at present. “We invested here because we saw the potential that we can contribute to [boost] tourist arrivals,” Ang said.

Over the last seven months, SMC has spruced up the Caticlan airport but it would take at least two more years to complete the major upgrading, Ang said.

The $300-million investment will include not only the upgrading of the airport itself but the construction of new amenities like a 5,000-room budget hotel, a world-class convention center and a retail complex that will showcase local souvenirs and a row of seafood restaurants. The tourism amenities, Ang said, would be managed by local operators.

“The airport will make Boracay a more affordable holiday destination for many Filipinos,” Ang said. With the upcoming improvements, he said there would be more regional and domestic flights to Boracay, in turn pulling down airfare costs per passenger from as much as P16,000 during the peak season to as low as P1,500 to P2,000.

The Caticlan airport is envisioned to be at par with the best airports in the region, with its runway planned to be extended from 950 meters to 2,500 meters. The width of the runway will also be doubled to 60 meters, allowing Boracay to handle regional and night landing. Flight volumes are targeted to increase by at least 30 percent.

Airport systems will likewise be streamlined for bigger volume of passengers while departure lounges will be improved. Based on the blueprint, it will also have a jetty port that can handle two international cruise liners at a time, allowing a more efficient transfer to Boracay Island.

To support Boracay’s green initiatives, Ang said the conglomerate would invest in a major water-treatment plant.

Asked whether SMC would start collecting higher terminal fees to recover its investment, Ang said there was no plan to do so as investment could be recovered from other businesses like hotel and retail operations. “We’ll keep the terminal fee affordable,” he said.

He said many international carriers were very much eager to fly to Caticlan once the rehabilitation has been finished.

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Millions North Korea soldiers out of post for Hunger and malnourished-report

North Korea is struggling to feed its army, according to new footage obtained from within the secretive state which shows a soldier complaining that his unit is weak from a lack of nutrition.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said the video was taken by an undercover North Korean journalist over several months earlier this year and smuggled out of the communist country to China.

It shows filthy, orphaned children begging for food in the streets and a party official ordering a vendor at a private market to give her a donation of rice for the army — once quarantined from food shortages.

“My business is not good,” complained the stallholder.

“Shut up,” replied the official. “Don’t offer excuses.”

One young North Korean soldier is filmed saying to the reporter’s hidden camera that “everybody is weak”.

“Within my troop of 100 comrades, half of them are malnourished,” he said.

Earlier this month, Seoul-based humanitarian group Good Friends reported that enlisted soldiers had been abandoning their posts due to a lack of food since April, with some troops forced to skip meals.

North Korea’s 1.1-million-strong military, under the regime’s “Songun” or “army first” policy, is usually given greater access to food than ordinary citizens.

The ABC said the exclusive video also showed labourers building a private railway track near the capital Pyongyang for ailing ruler Kim Jong-Il’s son and apparent heir Kim Jong-Un.

“This rail line is a present from Kim Jong-Il to comrade Kim Jong-Un,” the undercover journalist is told when he asks the building site supervisor what they are doing.

Asked why he risked his life to shoot the video, the journalist said he was fed up with how people were suffering.

“The life of North Koreans has hit rock bottom,” he said. “I feel very angry about the succession of Kim Jong-Un.”

Japanese publisher Jiro Ishimaru, who instructed the undercover reporter on how to use the camera, told the ABC the footage was important because it showed Kim Jong-Il’s regime weakening.

“It used to put the military first, but now it can’t even supply food to its soldiers,” Ishimaru, who edits a magazine featuring insider accounts of life in North Korea, said.

“Rice is being sold in markets but they are starving. This is the most significant thing in this video,” he said.

Ishimaru works for Asia Press, a Tokyo-based network of independent journalists, which has a team of 10 North Korean volunteers who cover news deep inside the country.

Impoverished North Korea has requested overseas food and relief groups have said that the state faces imminent shortages, saying people are again eating grass and tree bark.

The United Nations has pleaded with international donors to overlook political difficulties in the face of a humanitarian crisis, saying six million people are in danger of not getting enough to eat.

Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans died in a famine in the 1990s, with North Korea depending on foreign aid to help feed its 23 million people since then.

 

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