NAIA Expressway likely to miss APEC deadline

‘LAYAG ISLAS’ The 2008 design contest winner faces removal from its Pasay City site six years later. Marianne Bermudez

It was to be a showcase project of the Aquino administration that would be completed in time for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Summit later this year.

But word on the street is that the P15.8-billion Naia Expressway project that is meant to link the three terminals of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to Pagcor Entertainment City and the South Luzon Expressway via an elevated tollroad will almost certainly miss the revised rollout deadline of November 2015.

A cursory inspection of the worksite around Naia showed that construction activity by its builders have slowed to a crawl, but it’s not because of any shortcomings on the part of the project’s builder, San Miguel Corp., or its contractors.

Instead, Biz Buzz learned that the Department of Public Works and Highways has failed to turn over several parcels of real estate to the builders because the government has yet to secure right-of-way contracts from both private and public entities currently occupying sections of the 7.1-kilometer NaiaEx route.

These include properties currently occupied by facilities of the Light Rail transit Authority, Meralco and even Villamor Air Base, we’re told.

“The contractors can’t continue building because they don’t have anywhere to build on,” said one official familiar with the situation.

Incidentally, NaiaEx’s right-of-way issues echo similar problems faced by Ayala Corp. in trying to complete the 4-kilometer Daang Hari-SLEx link road, which was the first public-private partnership (PPP) deal awarded under the Aquino administration in 2012. And there’s still no word on when those issues will be resolved.

A similar issue also faces the GMR-Megawide consortium, which expects long delays in building a new Mactan-Cebu International Airport passenger terminal because the government has yet to clear out the Philippine Air Force from the site on which the new building will rise.

And one would think that right-of-way issues would be the first issue the government would take care of before awarding a project. Apparently not.

As for NaiaEx, the heads of state from Apec nations may just have to motor from the airport to Makati under those unfinished and unsightly scaffoldings.–Daxim L. Lucas