Four investor groups, including San Miguel Group, a team that includes the country’s largest property developers, and foreign conglomerates, have submitted documents to prequalify for the bidding of the P123-billion Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike project.
“We are happy that we have four groups who submitted qualification documents,” Public Works Undersecretary Rafael Yabut said.
Yabut said 24 companies initially expressed interest in the project but only four groups submitted qualification documents to beat the 2 p.m. deadline Friday.
He identified the four groups as San Miguel Holdings Corp., Team Tridnet (composed of property developers Ayala Land Inc., SM Prime Holdings Inc. and Megaworld Corp. and Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc); Alloy-PAVI-Hanshin LLEDP Consortium of Malaysia and Rainbow Holdings Corp. of Korea.
Megaworld joined Team Tridnet to become a formidable bidder in the construction and operation of the 47-kilometer flood control dike with a six-lane expressway toll road on top from Taguig City to Los Banos, Laguna.
Yabut said the Public Works Department would conduct the technical evaluation of the documents for seven days and open the financial bids on July 6. The agency plans to award the contract to the winning group in August this year.
The Public-Private-Partnership Center said the project would provide a high-standard highway with a dike that would ease traffic flow and mitigate flooding in the western coastal communities along Laguna Lake.
The highway will run from Taguig in Metro Manila through the towns of Calamba to the Los Banos-Bay boundary in Laguna.
The private proponent will also undertake the reclamation of 700 hectares located west of and abutting the expressway-dike and separated from the shoreline by a 100 to 150-meter channel, in Taguig and Muntinlupa.
It also aims to ease traffic congestion by providing motorists an alternate route in going to and from Laguna, avoiding the existing Calamba-Los Baños route.
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