TWO of the country’s largest conglomerates often clash on the hardcourt, as the three MVP Group teams of Meralco, TnT, and NLEX routinely face off against the San Miguel Corp. stable of Ginebra, San Miguel, and Magnolia.
It’s a contest that also sometimes extends to the country’s major highways. Both the San Miguel Corporation and the MVP Group have numerous projects in the works under the government’s ambitious ‘Build Build Build’ program.
“It's something like a healthy competition, I think,” Department of Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar told SPIN Life with a chuckle when we humorously compared it to their PBA rivalry.
“In a way, it's good that they're competing to see who can complete these projects faster,” he added.
Villar spoke with various Summit Media editors in a roundtable forum today.
“Kausap ko sila palagi, yung San Miguel at yung MPTC. Halos once or twice a month na nagmi-meeting kami para i-discuss yung mga projects, mga concerns nila,” explained the DPWH head.
Key in the public-private partnership that governs these contracts, said Villar, was government support, especially in the right of eminent domain, or the government’s power to take over private property for public use.
“Only the government has the right of eminent domain,” he said. “It's one of the things we really focused on. We created right of way teams, we significantly enhanced our legal departments for this.”
As an example, he cited the construction of San Miguel Corp.’s Skyway Stage 3, which finally opened to the public this year.
“In 2017, we took over the right-of-way from the TRB [Toll Regulatory Board] and we were able to use the power of government to really push the project forward,” he recalled.
Last July, Manny V. Pangilinan announced that the Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. is resuming “full blast” their major tollway projects in key areas around the country, especially along the North Luzon Expressway corridor.
Similarly, a month later, Ramon S. Ang said that SMC has earmarked P121.8 billion worth of infrastructure projects.
Speaking more than half a year later, “You can see now, a lot of them are being delivered,” said Villar. “I'm very happy to be working with them. Naging ka-close ko na nga mga empleyado nila.”
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