Sen. Serge Osmeña threatens to sue DOTC if it awards Mactan airport to Indian firm

Serge Osmeña

Sen. Sergio Osmeña III is threatening to sue the Department of Transportation and Communications if it awards the P17.7 billion contract to upgrade the Mactan-Cebu International Airport to the consortium of GMR Infrastructure Ltd. of India and Megawide Construction Corp.

Osmeña claimed that the DOTC had committed lapses in bidding out the multi-billion-peso project and ignored issues regarding the financial and operational competence of the reported winning bidder, GMR and Megawide.

“I am taking them to court if they award this to GMR…. If the DOTC awards this and gives this to GMR, I’ll take them to court. What can I do, the DOTC did not do its job,” Osmeña said at a news briefing at the Senate on Thursday.

Osmeña said he was particularly interested in the government’s expansion of the MCIA because it was his father, the late former Cebu Gov. Sergio Osmeña, Jr., who envisioned the construction of the Mactan airport in 1951.

Told that questioning the expected award of the MCIA deal in court would only further delay  the long  overdue project, Osmeña said, “I don’t want to be stuck with a guy there for 25 years… I don’t want anybody building our airport in Cebu who is not qualified.

Due diligence

“But right now, the DOTC has not yet made a decision. And I am questioning why they did not undertake, exercise proper due diligence, that now, after the process is almost ending, now we find out that these are skeletons in the closet,” Osmeña said.

Osmeña said that at a recent Senate hearing on the MCIA project, DOTC officials admitted committing some lapses such as relying on the sworn statements of bidders about their own corporate backgrounds.

In a privilege speech, Osmeña expressed “serious misgivings” about the competence of the GMR to carry out the 25-year project, citing its “shaky” financial standing and its partnership with the German firm  Frankfurt Airport Services Worldwide or Fraport.

Fraport was one of the companies that figured in the cancelled deal involving the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3.

“I asked the DOTC if they did their homework, if they checked the background. They did not. That’s why their report was only two pages,” Osmeña said.

“I asked for a copy of the report of the technical working group, the one that was supposed to undertake the due diligence. Two pages! Two pages for all seven bidders! I said, ‘You guys are a joke!’” he said.