It has been a while since my last column. That was a long two-month hiatus. I missed writing.
Over that period some things have happened in connection with the Tacloban Airport Development Project. It has not yet been officially announced by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), but this implementing agency already conducted the bidding for Phase II even if Phase I has not been completed and turned over by MAC Builders.
We can concede that perhaps there are works already completed that can now be the subject of Phase II activities. However, considering this bidding, CAAP must make an official report on its issuance of a Notice to Terminate or a Notice to Show Cause to MAC Builders which it said it would serve last November 2023
There is an unconfirmed report that the bidding for Phase II had four qualifying bids. MAC Builders is not on the list but many contractors in the know are saying that the third lowest bidder, Octagon, is owned by the family that owns MAC Builders. This is the same MAC Builders but is wearing the “Emperor’s New Clothes” a folktale written by Danish author Hans Christian Anderson (explaining the value of being supposedly honest), so to speak. Or put in another way, a rose by any name, would smell as sweet, according to Shakespeare in the play Romeo and Juliet. That looks like a compliment because a rose is fragrant . . .until you notice that it has a lot of thorns. A lesson from this famous play is that the name of things does not affect what they are. In plain language, the truth will come out.
What seems tragic and worrisome is the inside information that CAAP is trying to go to a negotiation and award Phase II to Octagon or, for all intents and purposes, to MAC now camouflaged in another name. I sincerely hope that this information is wrong because it can easily be proven in the records of the Securities and Exchange Commission that both companies are owned by the same family.
There is a principle in law that can be applied here. It is termed “piercing the artificial veil of corporate fiction” that hides the real owner or exempts them from personal liability (see for example the Supreme Court decision in G.R. No. 174938, October 1, 2014, Lanuza and Olbes vs, BF Corporation, et. al. where the Court stated that legal fiction cannot be used to perpetrate illegalities and injustices). If MAC mishandled Phase I of the Project with a negative slippage that went over the roof, then Octagon (being effectively owned by the same family) must not be given any chance of bagging Phase II. As it stands, CAAP already did.
It is, possible, CAAP will find a way to negotiate Phase II with Octagon, starting with freeing MAC of any liability for Phase I including the preposterous allegation that the delay is the fault of CAAP and the government! This agency never runs out of “schemes” (remember the three variation orders?) to solve problems. As explained above, this is a dangerous course of action from a legal standpoint. It will add to the many shortcomings that CAAP has fallen into in this project. To top it all, these shortcomings (could even be gross negligence) are on official records, written and oral. (But it would take a very brave soul to push this wrongdoing to a fair and logical conclusion). Maybe an investigative body can take this up motu proprio or by its action without the need for a formal complaint.
To bring home the point one more time, for emphasis, if CAAP decides to award Phase II to Octagon, it will, in effect, be an award to MAC Builders. It will be rewarding a contractor who has caused a two-year delay in the project so far, no matter the justifications. In my computations, the region loses 5 billion pesos, yes a huge and whooping 5 billion, worth of tourist-related revenues for each year that this Tacloban Airport Development Project is delayed. I would consider this delay a “crime” against the people of Region VIII, a region with a high rate of poverty and low per capita family incomes that this project can partly solve.
What is the approved budget for Phase II? Approximately One Billion Pesos.
About two billion pesos more will be allocated for this key regional project up to 2026. Two more years of what seems to be faulty implementation, and more delays.
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