The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) has deferred the awarding of the common ticket project of the country's three overhead train services to the partnership of Metro Pacific Investments Corp (MPIC) and Ayala Corp after another losing bidder raised issues about the auction.
In a text message, Transport Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said SM Consortium "sent letters" to the agency seeking clarification about the DOTC Bids and Awards Committee (BAC).
"We will not make an award unless we have addressed all motions for reconsideration," Abaya said.
He did not disclose the details of the letters that the SM Consortium sent the department.
But in a separate text message, DOTC-BAC chairman Perpetuo Lotilla, chairman of Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) said SM Consortium "just want[s] to clarify [the] meaning of unconditional bid."
Abaya last week said the agency had resolved the issues raised by another losing bidder, E-Trans Solutions Joint Venture, and secured an approval from the Regional Development Council (RDC) for the awarding of the Automated Fare Collection System (AFCS) Project to AF Consortium of the MPIC-Ayala group.
In a statement sent to media today, E-Trans said it is not giving up despite the government’s dismissal of the group's objection to awarding the project to AF Consortium.
Conrad Tolentino, lawyer for E-Trans, said his client "is confident it has a more competent technical package that has been proven in various countries, and its financial bid is much better than the lowest bid so far opened by the DOTC.”
Tolentino said a better bid translates to more revenues for the government and less burden to commuters.
“E-Trans is wondering, if the DOTC was willing to waive its own rules to benefit other bidders, purportedly to get the bid that’s more advantageous to government, why does it continue to refuse to open E-Trans’s bid?” the lawyer said.
The DOTC rated E-Trans’s technical proposal as “failed”, thus the agency saw no need to open the latter's financial proposal.
Earlier, the AF Consortium offered a negative financial bid of P1,088,103,900 for the AFCS, better than the P1,088,000,000 offer of the SM Consortium and the P2,050,090,300 of Comworks-Berjaya Consortium.
A negative bid means the winning bidder will pay the government instead of getting paid by the operator and riders for the service.
The DOTC set a bid ceiling of P1.72 billion for the project.
Under the project terms, the winning bidder will have the option to expand the contactless card system to other businesses in and out of the transportation sector, such as in retail transactions.
Similar to Hong Kong's "Octopus" card, the Philippine version would allow daily commuters to use a single ticket when they ride the LRT Lines 1 and 2, as well as the MRT Line 3. The three rail services have a combined ridership of a million a day.
One of the Aquino administration's public-private partnership (PPP) projects, the proposed tap-and-go system, which the winning bidder will operate for 10 years, will also enhance fare collection efficiency by reducing leakage and fraud.
In the future, the system can be expanded to include other transport modes such as buses, toll roads and the Philippine National Railways (PNR).
InterAksyon.com is the online news portal of TV5, which like MPIC is chaired by Manuel V. Pangilinan.
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