SM tycoon keen to buy military air base as well as Mactan airport lot

Businessman Henry Sy has bigger plans for Lapu-Lapu City.

Rep. Tomas Osmeña of Cebu City’s south district said the Sy family not only wants to acquire the property of Mactan Cebu Internal Airport (MCIA) lot but also that of  the nearby Benito Ebuen Air Base lot.

He said the SM tycoon already had the airport lot appraised  before he wrote airport manager Nigel Paul Villarete on Nov. 3 to express his interest in buying the land.

“The (Sy) family had it appraised already but they won’t tell me yet (the results). They already have enough information to make them interested (to buy),” Osmeña told Cebu Daily News.

Osmeña’s revelation this week of a solid offer to buy the 300-hectare airport lot and a proposal to relocate the airport to Cordova town in Mactan caught tourism stakeholders by surprise.

A large-scale development like this would need careful study and  approvals from several national government agencies.

At present, expansion work worth P178.6 million is ongoing at the Mactan airport to build two more passenger waiting lounges, two boarding bridges and passageways.

About 100 hectares of shore land in Cordova town would have to be reclaimed if plans materialize to transfer the airport and military air base, said Osmeña.

“A big part of the military air base lot is just being used as a golf course anyway and that is not earning the government anything.  This is a very complicated transaction and all the possibilities are there,” he said.

Osmeña said he is making all this information public to encourage discussion.

He said he was aware that “when I come up with ideas, people think that I am dreaming but SM listens to me.”

“I do not have a personal interest in this.  I just happen to love Cebu.  It’s not a crime.  I worked on the SRP (South Road Properties) for several years and I have no personal interest in that,” he said.

On Thursday, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama said the plan was “unpalatable” to businessmen who have plans for the airport and that  it came too “late” as proposals to build a bridge connecting Cebu City and Cordova have already been presented to the Regional Development Council (RDC) where Rama presides as chairman.

Rama said selling the Mactan airport lot was as farfetched as “putting the SRP under auction.”

Sy’s letter to airport general manager Villarete was presented to the board of the MCIA Authority board during its Nov. 28 meeting.

The board referred the matter for study to the planning and development committee headed by engineer Ricky Dakay.

“The revenue that MCIA would get from the sale of the airport lot would be more than enough for a new airport,” said Osmeña.

Cordova Reclamation

About 100 hectares would need to be reclaimed—60 for the airport building and 40 for the runway, according to Osmeña.

He said shorelines of barangay Day-as “has a quite solid foundation because the area has coral shells. This is hard enough to give the reclamation project a strong foundation.”

Osmeña said he has a study on the proposed reclamation area, which he worked on in 1995 with architect Jun Palafox and Dr. Edward Noda.  He described Noda as one of the best coastal engineers in the Pacific area.

(Edward K. Noda and Associates is a Hawaii-based engineering firm, according to the company website.)

In 1995, Osmeña was a private citizen after he decided not to seek an elective post. In that year, said Osmeña, he was  discussing plans for a Cordova reclamation project with Eugenio Lopez Sr., patriarch of the Lopez clan who owns ABS-CBN network.

He said Lopez had spent P22 million for the project, which included a study of how famous beach resorts in Puket, Thailand,  and Bali in Indonesia and those located in Guam and Hawaii were developed and became major tourism destinations.

With the death of Lopez and the global economic crisis, the Cordova reclamation project was not pursued, but Osmeña said he has the study and is well versed in the matter.

He said he foresees a big expense in putting up stone masonry to protect the airport from wave action in Cordova, perhaps giant concrete jackstones like the one used as wave breakers at the South Road Properties (SRP).

He said the reclamation would take two to three years; after which, construction of the runway and airport buildings may follow.

Study

He said a new airport may already be in place in Cordova town in the next 10 years.

“If SM is really interested, they can even spend for the study,” he said, to determine the viability of transferring the MCIA to Cordova.

“There are other interested parties, but I like SM because they are very organized. They have banking, a marketing arm and a good engineering group. SM knows Cebu because they have a strong presence here,” he said.

Why is a congressman from Cebu City interested in Mactan?

“All I want is to make Cebu globally competitive.  When this happens, even we in Cebu City will benefit,” he said, for example, by decongesting traffic.

Osmeña said that as former chairperson of the Metro Cebu Development Projects (MCDP), he has several development projects for Cebu in mind.

MCDP covered several road, traffic signal and bus terminal projects under  a 2-million yen loan agreement with Japan signed in 1989.

Osmeña said that although he’s from Cebu City, he got funding for the construction of the Marcelo Fernan Bridge in 1999 and the widening of A. S. Fortuna Street in Mandaue City.