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ASIAN Terminal, Inc. will still bid for North Harbor,
its top executive confirmed to The Manila Times.
“We should be interested . . .
we will join the bidding [for North Harbor],” Eusebio H. Tanco,
ATI president, said in a telephone interview.
The Philippine unit of DP World
was disqualified in the first bidding for failure to submit a waiver
document, a requirement that ensures unhampered bidding.
Instead, the company gave a special power of attorney that
allows its chief executive to execute such waiver.
ATI, which posted a net income of
P130.8 million in first quarter, operates three other major
international seaports in the country apart from the South Harbor in
Manila—the Batangas Port, Mariveles Grain Terminal in Bataan and
the General Santos City Port in Mindanao.
Leopoldo F. Bungubung, Philippine
Ports Authority’s (PPAs) port district manager and chairman of Special
Bid and Awards Committee (SBAC), said it has set August 13 as a
tentative date to republish the bidding for the modernization of the
North Harbor.
The port authority declared the
first bidding as a failure because only one potential bidder
qualified, the joint venture of Metro Pacific Investment Corp. (MPIC)
and Harbour Centre Port Terminals, Inc.
MPIC, the local unit of Hong
Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd., owns 35 percent of the joint
venture company, while Regis Romero-owned Harbour Center controls
the remaining 65 percent.
Other potential bidders that were
disqualified were the National Marine Corp. owned by the Magsaysay
Group; Pier 8 Arrastre and Stevedoring Services, Inc. and Prudential
Brokerage.
”All the rest who joined the bidding may still procure the
necessarily bidding documents,” Bungubung said.
The winning bidder will operate
the port for the next 25 years with provisions for renewal in order
to provide it with reasonable time to recover its investments.
The North Harbor ’s Terminal 1
will service roll on-roll off container and passenger vessels,
terminal 2 will service container and passenger vessel, while
terminal 3 will be allotted to conventional, noncontainerized, bulk
or breakbulk vessels and passenger vessels.
--Darwin G. Amojelar
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