DOTC awards ₱1.3 Billion 32 year old NAIA 1 rehab to DMCI, gives Dec. 1, 2014 deadline for APEC 2015

Proposed NAIA renovation design by Kenneth Cobonpue

 

• ₱1.299 Billion NAIA 1 rehab contract covers structural refitting and the improvement of mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection facilities and architectural works - DMCI
• ₱34.492 Million to oversee the project, NAIA 1 rehab construction management and supervision - TCGI Engineers
• ₱500 Million of the allotted funds for the NAIA 1 rehab project was earmarked for structural and aesthetic work - "The group of Cobunpue, Layug, and Pineda"
• ₱300 Million construction of a rapid exit to ease runway congestion and minimize delays of incoming or outgoing flights.
• ₱20 Million for the repair and rehabilitation of airport 72 restrooms

 

To follow projects:

• The South Metro Manila Skyway Project (Stage 2);
• LRT Line 1 North Extension Project;
• The Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Toll Expressway (TPLEX)
• The Metro Rail Transit Line 7

 

The Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) chose listed construction heavyweight D.M. Consunji, Inc. on Monday to rehabilitate the 32-year-old Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1, the country's main air travel gateway to the rest of the world.

 

DOTC Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said DMCI must complete the project by December 1, 2014—just before the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) senior officials' and high-level meetings, which the Philippines will host.

 

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"We will try our best to complete it, we are really behind but that is our target. This is long overdue and hopefully it will be completed as scheduled," Abaya said.

 

NAIA 1 has so far had 13,848 arriving flights (January to September) and welcomed 3.069 million people (January – September), while it sent off 13,843 flights and 3.325 million departing passengers.

 

The terminal was originally designed to handle only 4.5 million people in a year, but the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) said on its website that "improvements" made over the years "increased its capacity to 6 million passengers yearly."

 

The MIAA also said, "International passenger traffic in 2012 increased by 3.5% compared to 2011, from 7,831,099 to 8,105,782 and international flights likewise increased by 3.14% from 37,964 to 39,157."

 

Terminal 1 has 16 gates, 84 check-in counters and 22 immigration stations to service "all international flights coming into Manila, except for those operated by Cebu Pacific, Air Philippines, Philippine Airlines and All Nippon Air."

 

Secretary Abaya made the NAIA 1 contract award to DMCI public during the inauguration of three Philippine National Railway stations, which the same firm undertook and completed.

 

Highly-anticipated and much-scrutinized, the NAIA 1 rehab contract is worth ₱1.299 billion and covers structural refitting and the improvement of mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection facilities and architectural works.

 

The contract does involve the operation and maintenance of the oldest and most congested international airport.

 

The Ninoy Aquino Int'l Airport Terminal 1 in Pasay City has been voted the worst airport in Asia for 2012 and in the world for 2013 by the readers of online travel site 'The Guide to Sleeping in Airports.  Danny Pata

To oversee the project, engineering firm TCGI Engineers was also awarded on Monday the separate contract for the NAIA 1 rehab construction management and supervision - a ₱34.492 million deal.

 

Abaya said the December 1, 2014 deadline comes from the organizing committee of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

 

The award comes just days after the fatal shooting at NAIA Terminal 3 of four persons, including the mayor of a town in the province of Zamboanga del Sur, of Western Mindanao.

 

Only last October, "The Guide to Sleeping in Airports", a travel website, said NAIA 1 was the worst airport in terms of "comfort, amenities and overall experience."

 

To partly address the issues adverse reviews of the airport raised, the Cobonpue, Layug and Pineda group had volunteered months ago to redesign the airport terminal for free.

 

"The group of Cobunpue, Layug, and Pineda are on board," DOTC Secretary Abaya said.

 

Some ₱500 million of the allotted funds for the NAIA 1 rehab project was earmarked for structural and aesthetic work.

 

The construction of a rapid exit taxiway could cost ₱300 million, though it would ease runway congestion and minimize delays of incoming or outgoing flights.

 

For the repair and rehabilitation of 72 restrooms, some ₱20 million is allocated.

 

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DMCI was also awarded the contracts for building other major infrastructure projects of the administration of President Benigno Aquino III. Among these projects are: - ELR/DVM, GMA News

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The Guardian London said: Ferdinand Marcos Debts of Billions is a huge devastation than typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan)

The municipality of Basey as Christmas approaches. Devastated by typhoon Haiyan, the Philippines also has huge foreign debts. Photograph: Ezra Acayan/Barcroft Media

 

Former Dictator Marcos Debt over the past 40 years is continuously pushing the Philippines into deep deep down to poverty.

• Ferdinand Marcos Loaned $115 Billion US Dollars
• Philippines Defaulted (Bankrupted) in 1983 -  (After Martial law ended and ousted Marcos 1986)
• Succeeding government till todate paid Marcos debts of $132 Billion Dollars repaid in principal sums and interest
• The remaining unpaid is still $60 Billion Dollars
• The Philippines pays its international lenders nearly $22 million dollars every day for Marcos debt. The funds for payment of Marcos debt are slashed from the originally intended for Health Services, Education, Infrastructure and military armament upgrade – reported in Thomson Reuters Foundation

Without Marcos debt, the Philippines could NOT be a beggar country but a rich country today

 

The Philippines is devastated as much by unfair debt as typhoon Haiyan

 

By Christmas Eve, a country struggling with foreign loans and climate change will have spent $1bn on debts in seven weeks

 

By Christmas Eve, the Philippines will have spent $1bn (£0.6bn) paying foreign debts in the seven weeks since typhoon Haiyan devastated much of the country. It will have spent a total of $8.4bn on foreign debt in 2013, and faces a further $8.8bn in 2014. While a little more than $100m has been pledged by international donors for relief work, more than 800 times that amount of money leaves the country every year to pay debts.

 

The people of the Philippines have been saddled with a large debt since the 1980s, when Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator who held the presidency from 1965 to 1986, was loaned large amounts by western governments and institutions such as the World Bank in order to keep him onside during the cold war. During his rule, Marcos is thought to have stolen up to $10bn of Filipino money. But after he was deposed in 1986, the lenders who were complicit in this corruption continued to demand repayment.

 

The impact of chronic debt has been devastating for the Filipino people, with public services such as health and education persistently underfunded. Today, about 16 million Filipinos are estimated to be living in extreme poverty and malnourished. Meanwhile, more than 20% of government revenue is spent on foreign debt payments each year, almost as much as on health and education combined.

 

In response to typhoon Haiyan, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank rapidly announced they would lend $1.9bn for emergency assistance and reconstruction. That this much-needed money will be given as loans rather than grants means the impact of the disaster will continue through another generation because of the high debt payments.

 

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By definition, loans for reconstruction cannot generate returns to enable the debt to be paid. The most they can do is return infrastructure to the state it was in before a disaster hit. As Joseph Stead from Christian Aid says: "Debts that should have been cancelled years ago are limiting the capacity of the Philippines to respond and rebuild [after] the typhoon. Action on this is clearly needed before any new debts are added."

 

But the impact of high debt payments is not the only reason Filipino debt should be cancelled. Following the end of Marcos's dictatorship, many of those who had resisted his rule formed the Freedom from Debt Coalition, calling for the non-payment of his odious debts. Loans to Marcos to build the Batan nuclear power plant – which never generated any electricity, and was built on an earthquake faultline – merely represent the most absurd example.

 

These unjust loans continued after the fall of Marcos. In 1997, the Bank of Austria lent money for medical waste incinerators, which were already being decommissioned in Europe because of their high level of pollution and would be banned in the Philippines within two years. In 2008, the Freedom from Debt Coalition got the Philippines Congress to agree to suspend payments on these and 10 other loans, but this decision was vetoed by Gloria Arroyo, the president at the time.

 

The UK government also played a role in the accumulation of useless debt. In the 2000s, UK Export Finance, part of the Department for Business, guaranteed loans for the purchase of bridges from British company Mabey and Johnson. Local campaigners said many of the bridges went nowhere, leading into the middle of fields or connecting up mud tracks. Mabey and Johnson were later convicted of paying bribes to win projects in six developing countries: Jamaica, Ghana, Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique and Bangladesh.

 

The Philippines was excluded from international debt relief schemes because, with an annual income of £1,600 a person, it was adjudged "too rich" by governments. Consequently, the country remains trapped in a debt cycle where payments limit government investments, preventing repayment of the debt. Over the past 40 years, the Philippines government has been loaned $115bn and has repaid $132bn in principal sums and interest. However, it is still said to owe $60bn.

 

This cycle is now being exacerbated by climate change, as the strength of typhoons and the damage they cause increases. Richer governments have consistently refused to meet obligations, agreed in 1992 (pdf), to compensate developing countries for the damaging impact of their greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Even where limited funds are being given, these often come in the form of loans.

 

For example, alongside a grant of £70m, the UK government is lending £255m through the World Bank for climate change adaptation projects. This includes lending money to the Caribbean island of Grenada, even though it is already in default and unable to pay its huge debts.

 

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"Justice for the Filipino people demands debt cancellation," says Ricardo Reyes of the Freedom from Debt Coalition. "Climate justice demands reparations to enable the Philippines to develop resilience to climate change and compensation for losses and damages."

 

Where debts are out of control, fail to protect basic human rights, or come from odious loans for damaging or failed projects – all of which is true of the Philippines – they should be cancelled. And as climate change gets worse, the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions have a moral duty to compensate those who are most impacted, and to do so with grants, not loans. – report posted from The Guardian and Thomson Reuters Foundation

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