The Philippine Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) has pre-qualified four bidders for the construction of the integrated transport system (ITS) South Terminal at the Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) complex in Taguig City.

The four prequalified teams are the following:

• 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.

Maju TMAS Sdn Bhd of Malaysia did not meet O&M experience because it failed to comply with the notarized certification of project requirement. Another team formed by EEI Corp. and Filinvest Land was not qualified due to incomplete document submission.

Prequalified bidders will be allowed to submit their technical and financial bids for the PPP projects in April next year.

Diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) and Robinsons Land Inc. of tycoon John Gokongwei earlier bought bidding documents from the DOTC but did not submit prequalification documents last Nov. 25.

The 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$89.7 million).

On the other hand, interested companies for the P2.5-billion ITS -Southwest Terminal project at the Coastal Road Terminal along the Manila-Cavite Expressway have until today to submit their qualification documents.