Fixing a national shame

Our international airport in Metro Manila has been a constant source of embarrassment and annoyance for many Filipinos over the past years.

- BOO CHANCO

It is a national shame that captures all that is bad about the Filipino's present condition.

It has been abused by politicians and their cronies who have been milking it at the expense of the airport's proper operations. The airport had been badly managed but no previous President had the inclination to deal with it.

Finally, we have a President willing to admit failure in NAIA management and fast tracked a public bidding for a private group to take over. NAIA operations had to be privatized for anything good to happen.

The San Miguel Corp.-led New NAIA Infra Corp. (NNIC) that won the bid has made an upfront payment of P30 billion for the right to redevelop NAIA as a public-private partnership (PPP) project. San Miguel will also provide a fixed P2 billion annual payment and 82.16 percent national government revenue share, excluding passenger service charges.

According to Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, "the government is expected to generate roughly P900 billion in revenues from this deal over the entire term, which is a 15-year concession period, extendable by another 10 years. This will be equivalent to a revenue source of more or less P36 billion annually." Question is, if the airport can deliver all that revenue under private management, why was the government unable to do so all these past years? Before privatization, the Manila International Airport Authority only sent about P2 billion yearly as dividends to the national government.