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Inquirer News Briefs: Palace ‘unaware’ that banned China firm got Sangley airport project
Philippine Daily Inquirer/ September 15, 2020
Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea admitted that the Office of the President did not know that a Chinese firm blacklisted by the United States is involved in the Sangley airport project, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported Tuesday.
Medialdea made the admission during a hearing on the budget of the Office of the President at the House of Representatives on Monday.
The US blacklisted the state-run China Communications Construction Co. Ltd. (CCCC) because of its participation in the reclamation of disputed areas in the South China Sea, a portion of which is within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the Philippines, the Inquirer reported.
The CCCC is part of a consortium that was awarded the Sangley Point International Airport project in Cavite. Sangley Point houses a Philippine naval base and used to be a US military facility.
“We are not aware of specific companies as of now. That’s within the purview of the Department of Public Works and Highways,” Medialdea told the House body, according to the Inquirer.
Medialdea also said the Philippines need not ban any company just because the United States did so.
“Let us give them due process. The government has an independent foreign policy,” he replied to Makabayan lawmaker Ferdinand Gaite who made the inquiries on the matter during the hearing.
The Cavite provincial government awarded last February the initial phase of the Sangley Point International Airport (SPIA) project to the consortium of China Communications Construction Co. Ltd. (CCCC) and Lucio Tan-owned MacroAsia Corp.
The Inquirer reported that the consortium was the sole bidder for phase one of the project. Phase one will cost P208.5 billion out of the total project value of P550 billion.
Phase 1 involves the construction of the first runway and terminal with a passenger capacity of 25 million passengers per year. It was projected to be completed in 2022.
(DMS/Virgilio DC. Galvez)
Read more: https://business.inquirer.net/290602/china-backed-group-bags-sangley-airport-project#ixzz6Y4quZT19
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The award was expected given that the consortium was the sole bidder that submitted its joint venture proposal to the Cavite government last Dec. 17, 2019.
Read more: https://business.inquirer.net/290602/china-backed-group-bags-sangley-airport-project#ixzz6Y4q0HzmT
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Inquirer News Briefs: Kickbacks motive behind proposed PH properties sale in Japan
Philippine Daily Inquirer/ September 15, 2020
Locsin: Kickbacks motive behind push to sell Ph properties in Japan
Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. opposes a renewed bid to sell four Philippine properties in Japan accusing those behind it as only after kickbacks, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported on Tuesday.
The four properties in Tokyo and Kobe were acquired by the Philippine government under the war reparation agreement with Japan on May 9, 1956.
It includes the 3,179 square-meter property in Roppongi district in Tokyo, one of the most expensive piece of real estate in the Japanese capital, the Inquirer said.
Several attempts were made by past administrations to dispose of the Roppongi property either by sale or long-term lease.
The three other war reparation properties are:
- The 2,489.96 sq.m.-Nampeidai property at 11-24 Nampeidai-machi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
- The 764.72 sq.m.-Kobe commercial croperty at 63 Naniwa-cho, Kobe
- The Kobe residential property at 1-980-2 Obanoyama-cho, Shinohara, Nada-ku, Kobe.
“There is another plot to dispose of four of our Japan properties. This is a second Pearl Harbor perpetrated by Filipinos on our own patrimony,” Locsin tweeted on Monday, according to the Inquirer.
“Dollar patriotism. Not while I am alive. Kaching, kaching. Disgusting!!!,” he continued, saying “the plight of our poor veterans, so few of them left, have been invoked by every gang of officials who’ve run through the budgets of their own agencies.”
The Supreme Court has ruled in a previous case that the sale of the four properties in Japan requires concurrence of the President and Congress, the Inquirer said.
Locsin said he has turned down all proposals to sell government properties overseas during the pandemic. It is not clear whether the proposals have to do with earlier pronouncements of President Duterte for government to raise funds for the anti-Covid-19 campaign.
(DMS/Virgilio DC. Galvez)