‘Honest’ Noynoy dished out SCTex lies — BCDA

By Ayen Infante

02/10/2010

Liberal Party (LP) presidential bet Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, who is anchoring his candidacy supposedly on transparency and truth, was accused of making a bare-faced lie to shore up his flagging numbers in the presidential surveys.

The government agency Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) strongly belied yesterday Aquino’s allegations made before his turf at the Makati Business Club (MBC) that the construction of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTex) took eight years to complete instead of two years.

BCDA, in a statement, said the senator churned out lies on the SCTex project. “That is not true,” the BCDA said.

BCDA added from the signing of the civil works contract with Japanese contractors in March 2005 in which the starting date was set on April 21, 2005, the BCDA completed construction of the SCTex main alignment as scheduled and without delay on March 15, 2008 for the Subic to Clark segment and April 5, 2008 for the Clark to Tarlac segment or a little less than three years from the start of the contract and not eight years as Aquino claimed.

The SCTex Subic-Clark segment and a portion of the Clark-Tarlac segment were opened for commercial operations on April 28, 2008. The remaining portion of the Clark-Tarlac segment was opened for commercial operations a little over 3 months after (25 July 2008) due to the commitment of the BCDA to construct overpasses and service roads in Concepcion, Tarlac. “A project of this magnitude cannot be finished in two years,” according to BCDA.

It added that due to value engineering instituted during construction, BCDA was able to reduce the civil works cost by P940 million.

On Sen. Aquino’s allegations that the project excluded an exit access in Clark which he said should be a priority interchange, BCDA said additional works were implemented through the construction of additional three interchanges in Clark South, Porac and Floridablanca and the Panday Pira access road.

The Panday Pira Road, which is the access road to and from Clark via the Clark North Interchange, was completed on December 23, 2008.

While the Clark South Interchange was completed on April 4, 2009. The Porac and Floridablanca interchanges were completed on July 31, 2009. “In short, the additional works extended the construction period by an additional one year,” it said.

As early as April 2008 when SCTex was already operational, Clark North Interchange, one of the two interchanges to provide access to and from Clark, was already finished and ready for opening.

However, it explained that connection to Clark via the Panday Pira Road, not part of the original scope of works, was implemented as additional work and was completed eight months after. But despite the pending completion of the Panday Pira Road back then, motorists in the SCTex could still easily access the Clark Freeport Zone by taking the Mabalacat Exit, proceed towards MacArthur Highway and then Clark. The Clark South Interchange, the other interchange providing additional access to and from Clark and Angeles City, was finished after nearly a year.

The BCDA said SCTexis one of the successfully-implemented projects funded under Japanese concessional loan.

From project approval by the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) in 1999 to the loan signing with the Japanese Government in Sept. 14, 2001 to the conduct of detailed engineering design from July 2002 to July 2003 until the bidding of the civil works from July 2003 to March 21, 2005, BCDA has constantly and consistently adhered to rules, regulations and processes required by government as well as the funding agency, ensuring transparency and regularity in project preparation and implementation, it added.

Aquino, in a statement, meanwhile, vowed to complete the distribution of over a million hectares of private lands during the five-year extension period of the agrarian reform law.

He said that his priority if elected president would be to complete land distribution.

Aquino said this would allow government to pour more funds into agricultural extension services, irrigation, farm-to-market roads, to help farmer-beneficiaries.

Some P150 billion have been allocated under Carper (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) Extension with Reforms), which was signed into law in August last year, to purchase the remaining 1-1.5 million hectares of private land in the next five years.

Aquino also disclosed that he had asked his “extended family” to find ways and means to transfer the assets of Hacienda Luisita to farmer-beneficiaries.

“This should be done debt-free to allow the farmers to begin without any financial baggage,” he said.

Aquino said while the family could avail of the voluntary offer to sell option provided by Carper, he did not think it would be in the better interest of the 10,000 farmer- beneficiaries.

“At P10 per square meter, which would be P4.5 billion for 45,000 hectares. That will take care of our debts. But if we do that, the 10,000 farmers will only get less than one hectare and that will not be enough for a single individual, much less an entire family to live on,” the LP bet explained.

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