Stumbling block

The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) has spoken. It is awarding the airport terminal expansion project to GMR-Megawide, drawing howls of protest from rival bidder Filinvest-Changi airport and Sen. Serge Osmeña.

Leaders in the Cebu business community, which appeared to be nonpartisan as to the final choice of who would implement the airport expansion, welcomed the DOTC decision. Their primary concern was that the project, whose announcement of a winning bidder was delayed for three months, could immediately start.

The terminal in Mactan, handling way over its capacity, is holding back Cebu’s opportunities to accommodate a huge turnout of tourists in the coming years.

There are two major international events in the horizon for Cebu: pre-summit events of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) next year and the International Eucharistic Congress in 2016 , which the local Catholic Church hopes Pope Francis would grace.

Taken at face value, DOTC’s decision should not come as a surprise considering that GMR-Megawide has the biggest bid at P14.4 billion, about P400 million more than that submitted by the Filinvest-Changi consortium.

Senator Osmeña’s allegations, while not to be dismissed, are seen as a stumbling block to the full realization of the airport expansion project.

Among the allegations Osmeña raised was that GMR-Megawide lacks both the financial and technical capabilities of building and operating airports, and has a possible conflict of interest because of the presence of a company official in the directors’ boards of the two losing bidders.

Critics of Osmeña say he is lawyering for Filinvest, which also invested heavily in the South Road Properties (SRP), a flagship project of his brother, former mayor and congressman Tomas Osmeña.

The charges raised by the senator look counterproductive and his threat to elevate the case to court would only hold the airport expansion hostage.

Now that he’s filed a case in the Supreme Court, let the court of last resort weigh the merits.

Meanwhile, GMR-Megawide can proceed with the rest of the paperwork and preliminaries to start the project.

Further delay would mean that the biggest losers are not the business community but Cebu’s economy (and by extension the country), and millions of travelers, domestic and foreign, who are already inconvenienced by the severely limited facilities of the Mactan airport.