The Philippine Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) has accelerated the bidding process for the integrated transport system (ITS) South Terminal in Taguig City.

DOTC assistant secretary for legal affairs Jaime Fortunato Caringal issued a General Bid Bulletin No. 12 - 2015 moving the submission date for bid proposals for the PPP project to May 18 instead of June 1.

This was after the DOTC deferred the submission of bids to June 1 instead of April 13 in order to give the pre-qualified companies more time to prepare their proposals.

In December 2014 DOTC prequalified four teams:

• Ayala Land Inc, Makati Development Corp (construction contractor) and Ayala Property Management Corp.(O&M contractor)
• Filinvest Land Inc., DDT Konstract Inc. (construction contractor) and Festival Supermall Inc. and Pro-Excel Property Managers Inc. (O&M contractor)
• Datem Inc. and LKY Development Corp (construction contractor)
• MWM Terminals led by Megawide Construction Corp. and WM Property Management Inc.

Caringal said the DOTC is set to hold the second round of one-on-one meetings with the four prequalified bidders from March 16 to 20.

The 5.57-hectare South terminal would connect passengers from the Laguna and Batangas side to other urban transport systems such as the proposed North-South Commuter Rail of the Philippine National Railways, city buses, taxis, and other public utility vehicles that serve inner Metro Manila.

The project will be developed on a design, build, finance, operation and maintenance (DBFOM) basis. The contract period will be 35 years. The project involves the development of:

• a passenger terminal building,
• arrival and departures bays,
• public information systems,
• ticketing and
• baggage holding facilities and park-ride facilities.

The total project investment is estimated at P4 billion (US$90.3 million). The bid amount could be in the form of an annual grantor payment wherein the government would pay the winning concessionaire to undertake the project or in the form of annual concession payment to be paid by the concessionaire to the DOTC.

The DOTC earlier awarded the P2.5 billion ITS -Southwest Terminal project along the Manila-Cavite Expressway (Cavitex) to Megawide-led MWM Terminals which submitted an annual grantor payment of P100 million for the project.