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The Department of Finance has cancelled the April 24
bidding of the old Iloilo airport and rescheduled it to May 9,
adding it needs more time to iron out important issues.
Finance Undersecretary John Paul
Sevilla, the official in charge of the government’s privatization
efforts, said the DOF changed the schedule to ensure a smooth
bidding process.
During a press conference,
Sevilla refused to divulge the new appraised value of the property,
saying the agency is protecting the interests of the participating
bidders, considering that they are big companies.
He said the bidders and the
government adhere to a commitment to temporarily withhold bidding
information until the auction is completed.
At least five big names in the
Philippine property sector are bidding for a 54-hectare property
that used to serve as the airport in the central province of Iloilo,
according to the finance department
On a list released earlier by the
DOF, interested buyers include Ayala Land Inc., Empire East Land
Holdings Inc., Filinvest Land Inc., Robinson’s Land Corp.,
Rockwell Land Corp. and SM Prime Holdings Inc.
“This property looks much
easier to sell than the PTIC, but we see it the other way,”
Sevilla said, referring to the earlier sale of the government’s
stake in Philippine Telecommunication Investment Corp., which holds
a 6-percent stake in Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.
“But we see much smaller
privatization revenue from overall asset sale this year compared to
PTIC,” he said.
The government earned about P25
billion from the sale of its PTIC stake.
Sevilla said the government will
not set a floor price for the Iloilo property to secure higher bids,
adding the property is huge.
The finance department however
recently released a price range for the airport based on land
transactions in Iloilo. The price ranges from P500 million to P2
billion.
After the Iloilo property, the
government plans to sell the al-Amanah Islamic Bank and its stake in
Manila Electric Co., Sevilla said.
“Along the way the probability
will increase to more than 60 percent or 70 percent that we can
finish and complete our initiative. In the meantime however we did
not factor in San Miguel assets,” Finance Secretary Margarito
Teves said, referring to the government’s holdings in Southeast
Asia’s largest food and beverage conglomerate.
The department said that it could
raise the privatization goal to jack up nontax revenues to P103.8
billion from the P90.6 billion originally submitted to Congress for
approval.
Other assets scheduled to be sold
are the government’s property in Fujimi, Tokyo, and the Philippine
Postal Corp.
The government also hopes to
settle the privatization of two government-run television stations,
RPN 9 and IBC 13, but noted that they removed the two stations from
this year’s priority list.
 --Angelo
S. Samonte
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