Manny Pangilinan on Ramon Ang Winning the NAIA Rehab Project: 'He's Found a New Toy in NAIA'

Manny Pangilinan on Ramon Ang Winning the NAIA Rehab Project: ‘He’s Found a New Toy in NAIA’

Mega tycoon Manny Pangilinan says he congratulated Ramon Ang after a consortium led by the latter’s San Miguel Corp. won the bid to rehabilitate the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. During an intimate dinner to launch the new PLDT Home Gigabit Fiber internet product of the telco giant on Monday evening (February 19) at the home of PLDT exec Butch Jimenez, Pangilinan said he wasn’t surprised when it was Ang’s bid that won the P170.6-billion project over proposals from other formidable rivals.

“Whopping bid, right?” Pangilinan said. “Frankly I wasn’t surprised, having competed against Ramon in the past. What else can I say?”

Pangilinan-led Metro Pacific Tollways developed and operates one of the two major toll roads networks in the Philippines. This includes the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX), NLEX Connector, Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX), Manila-Cavite Toll Expressway (Cavitex), Cavite-Laguna Expressway (CALAX), and Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway (CCLEX).

Meanwhile, Ang’s San Miguel Corp., through SMC Infrastructure, operates the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX), Star Tollway, the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX), the Skyway, and the NAIA Expressway.

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On Friday (February 16), the government through the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) awarded the project to rehabilitate the 42-year-old NAIA to the consortium composed of San Miguel Holdings Corp., RMM Asian Logistics Inc., RLW Aviation Development Inc., and Incheon International Airport Corp. (IIAC).

The SMC group’s proposed revenue share with the government, which was a key factor in the bid, was more than double that of its two rivals. SMC’s proposed revenue share with the government was at 82.16 percent, while that of GMR Airport Consortium was at 33.3 percent and that of the Manila International Airport Consortium (MIAC) was at 25.91 percent.

Esquire Philippines asked Pangilinan if he thought Ang and SMC would do a good job in the new project.

“I see no reason why he shouldn’t,” Pangilinan said. “We may question his tactics, we may question his motivations, but I think he’s fairly serious.”

Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), was, of course, once a member of the so-called “superconsortium” composed of some of the country’s biggest corporations that first submitted an unsolicited proposal to rehabilitate NAIA in 2018. Also included in the group were Aboitiz InfraCapital Incorporated, Ayala-led AC Infrastructure Holdings Corporation, Andrew Tan-owned Alliance Global Group Incorporated, Lucio Tan’s Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corporation, Filinvest Development Corporation of the Gotianun family, and Gokongwei-led JG Summit Holdings.

Pangilinan said MPIC pulled out of the consortium to avoid additional regulatory hurdles related to the proposal.

But the tycoon said he believed the NAIA rehab project would be successful given Ang’s track record.

“A few people are skeptics,” Pangilinan said about Ang. “I’ve seen him work up close. I think, frankly, he’s underestimated.”

Pangilinan also mentioned how SMC’s tollways are more profitable than MPTC’s. SMC Infrastructure reported 2022 revenues at P29 billion and operating income at P14.2 billion. MPTC, meanwhile, reported total 2022 revenues at P24.6 billion and core income at P5.7 billion. It’s worth noting, however, that while Ang’s tollroads business is limited to the Philippines, Pangilinan’s MPTC has interests in tollway companies in Indonesia and Vietnam.

“His tollways are more profitable than ours,” Pangilinan said about Ang. “He’s built quite a lot of them and he’s building more, if we’re to believe what he’s said before about spending P300 billion on X kilometers on more tollways.”

For years, MPIC and SMC competed to win lucrative contracts to build roads and highways in Metro Manila and beyond. In the last few years alone, both companies have fought over some of the country’s most important infrastructure projects, including toll roads (such as the Cavite-Laguna Expressway, the NAIA Expressway, and NLEX and SLEX); railways and mass transit (including the LRT 1 line and the MRT3 line); power and energy (both have interests in the sector and have competed in power generation and power assets acquisition); water utilities; and telecommunications.

However, despite being rivals, Pangilinan and Ang did manage to come together in recent months on a new venture. Last October, SMC announced that, upon the invitation of Pangilinan himself, Ang made a sizeable “indirect” investment in MPIC, which earned the San Miguel exec a seat in that company as a member of the board.

MPTC also partnered with SMC Infrastructure on a new venture on the Cavite-Batangas expressway.

“Rather than competing with him, we said, let’s do it together,” Pangilinan said. “It benefits the country if we’re able to travel quicker and more efficiently.”

The chairman of PLDT also mentioned Ang’s interests beyond business.

“He’s also a mechanic at heart,” Pangilinan said about Ang. “He likes to tinker. He does a lot of checking up on his tollways. I don’t do that. He travels across his tollways to check on his tollways. That’s what I heard. And I think that’s what he’ll do. He’s found a new toy in NAIA. He’s going to be at it quite diligently.”