A Pasay City court hearing the government’s
expropriation case against the builder of the NAIA Terminal 3
has allowed Japanese corporations Takenaka and Asahikosan the
right to intervene and actively participate in the case.
In allowing the intervention of the two
corporations Judge Jesus Mupas said they are in the best
position to tell the court issues related to the expropriation
case especially the construction cost of the terminal.
"Takenaka and Asahikosan Corporation, who are
both before this Court seeking the payment to then of the amount
they believe are due them for the construction cost of NAIA IPT
3, are clearly in the best position to elucidate in the course
of this expropriation case what NAIA IPT 3 is composed, and to
justify the actual construction cost of the terminal to the
Commissioners and to this Court," said Mupas’ two-page order.
Takenaka and Asahikosan were engaged by the
Philippine International Air Terminal Corporation Incorporated [Piatco]
as construction contractor and procurement supplier for the
building of the facility.
To determine the total amount for
compensation payment, the lower court has appointed a three-man
commission headed by former Public Works secretary Virgilio
Vigilar, former Commission on Audit commissioner Sofronio Ursal
and Air Force pilot Angelo Panganiban.
The Commission has ordered both parties to
submit a list of appraisal firms who will help them in
determining the compensation owed to Piatco though no result has
been released a year after the body was created.
But in the same order, Mupas denied as moot
and academic the prayer of the two corporations filed last
August 9, 2006 seeking to prevent the payment of the initial
compensation to Piatco last year.
The judge said Piatco has received P3 billion
as part of the expropriation payment.
The government through the Office of the
Solicitor General [OSG] tried to blocked the payment of the
amount in April last year citing among other things the need to
thoroughly assess the compensation package and even the collapse
of an 80-meter portion of the terminal’s ceiling as proof that
the facility has structural problems that needed to be address
before any payment is to be made. But the lower court citing an
earlier ruling of the Supreme Court junked the motion and
ordered the plaintiffs to release the amount through the Land
Bank of the Philippines Baclaran branch.
Piatco has sued the Philippine government
before Singapore and Washington D.C. arbitration bodies for the
payment of the construction cost of the facility which they said
cost them US$600 million.
Late last year the firm won a favorable
ruling from the Singapore body though the government is
appealing the case.
The firm’s German partner, Fraport AG is also
suing the government for US$400 million though the government
said the actual cost might have reached only US$325 million.
Started during the time of former president
Joseph Estrada the project become controversial after the
Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that the project was anomalous and
disadvantageous to the government.
With a floor area of 182,000 square meters and a passenger
capacity of 13 million annually the facility is envisioned to
replace Terminal 1 which has only a 4.5 million passenger
capacity and 87,000 square meters floor area. – Ashzel
Hachero
