The Daily Manila Shimbun

 

Filipino-Chinese consortium to develop Marawi for at least P17.2 billion, official says

April 6, 2018



The Filipino-Chinese consortium has offered to build the "ground zero" in Marawi City for at least P17 billion, an official said on Friday.

This amount is on top of the P55 billion new estimate to rebuild areas outside of the city, said Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council chair Eduardo del Rosario, head of Task Force Bangon Marawi.

"It has a total budgetary requirement of P55 billion, plus more or less P17 to P20 billion for the most affected areas," he said of the estimated cost of the comprehensive plan to rebuild Marawi.

He said four Chinese and one Malaysian companies submitted proposals to rebuild the city, which was devastated during the five-month fighting between the government troops and the ISIS-Maute terrorists last year.

"And based on our selection criteria with regards to the project cost, terms of payment, responsiveness to the minimum requirements, overall conceptual design and project design, the Bagong Marawi Consortium was chosen by the selection committee," he said.

Del Rosario said the consortium is composed of Chinese and Filipino companies.

"At the moment it’s 17.2 (billion pesos). It’s undergoing negotiation and it will increase if there are some facilities that the local stakeholders would like to have and we feel that is really needed then we will incorporate," he said.

Once firmed up, he said the proposal of the Marawi consortium is subject to Swiss challenge.

The official said the task force was given three weeks from May 4 to May 25 to complete the Swiss challenge.

"And if successful again, we will award on May 31 whoever will be the winner in the Swiss challenge. Once awarded on May 31, the groundbreaking will be on June 7 of 2018 and completion will be in the last quarter of 2021," he said.

Under the Swiss challenge, other companies could bid and challenge the proposal of the Marawi consortium, which has given right to match the offer of the competitor.

If the Marawi consortium could match the other offer, it will get the project. But if it could not match the offer, the most affected area in Marawi will be rebuilt by the challenger.

Del Rosario said the plan to declare certain area in Marawi as economic zone was just a proposal by Philippine Economic Zone Authority Director General Charito Plaza.

He stressed that it was just an offer and there was no final decision on the matter.

He made the clarification following reports Marawi residents have been opposing this.

He also assured residents of Marawi will be consulted regarding rehabilitation of the area. Celerina Monte/DMS