"The world’s biggest and booming airports are built near the sea."
"The world’s biggest and booming airports are built near the sea."
Dripping with sarcasm and contempt, Inquirer columnist Solita Monsod on Jan. 30 wrote a stinging criticism of San Miguel Aerocity’s P740-billion New Manila International Airport in Bulakan town, Bulacan.
Her objections are mainly: One San Miguel Corp., the country’s largest conglomerate and biggest private infra developer, was given, by law, tax incentives to pursue the game-changing airport; two, in 50 years, the Bulacan location will sink below sea level.
Under Republic Act No. 11506, the tax privileges are: For 10 years, exemption from all direct and indirect taxes and fees related to the project, such as income taxes, value-added taxes, percentage taxes, excise taxes, documentary stamp taxes, customs duties and tariffs, as well as property taxes on land, buildings, and personal property.
“For the rest of the 50-year term, the company will remain exempt from paying income and real estate taxes until a ‘competent authority’ declares that the company has ‘fully recovered its investment cost’ ,” Mrs. Monsod sneers. Beyond the 12 percent annual rate of return, the government gets a profit windfall.
She adds: “In 50 years, that airport may be underwater. (The) airport location is sinking. In 50 years, it will have sunk below sea level…The location is susceptible to land subsidence (gradual caving in or sinking of land) of up to 8.3 centimeters per year, storm surges of 5 meters, and flooding; it is also susceptible to liquefaction, ground shaking, tsunami.”
“If the land is sinking at 8.3 cm a year, that means that in 12 years, it will have sunk by 1 meter (8.3 cm x 12 = 99.6 cm). Therefore, in roughly 37 years it will have sunk by 3 meters and 7 centimeters. The airport will be built 3 meters above sea level. So, 13 years before the government takes over the airport, it may already be underwater.”
This simple calculation, Solita points out, “does not take into account the rate of sea level rise (SLR) in Manila Bay, which is projected to be higher than the global average of 29 cm by 2050.”
“The government may have a white elephant in 50 years,” she frets.
My take:
That the Bulacan airport location will sink in 12 years is pure speculation. That it will be underwater by 3 meters and 7 centimeters in 37 years is an even wilder conjecture. And assuming for the sake of argument Solita is prescient, Bulacan will be underwater by three meters in 37 years (most of us won’t be around to see that happen), the more relevant question to ask is: So what?
Pasay, Manila and Bulacan are on the same elevation since all of them face Manila Bay. Right now, the three areas are slightly below sea level. The present Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) is in Pasay. Sangley is in Cavite where the provincial government dreams of having a $10-billion international airport.
If it is wrong to locate an international airport in Bulacan, then the present NAIA should be relocated ASAP. Any plans to build an airport in Sangley should be scuttled. SMC’s Bulacan airport should not proceed at all. And the present Clark International Airport should be demolished too.
In 1972, during the Great Flood, Manila Bay’s waters met with Lingayen Gulf in the north at the vast plains of Central Luzon. So in a big flood, if NAIA, Sangley and Bulacan will sink, so too must Clark since the waters of Manila Bay and Bulacan spill into Pampanga.
In fact, since the coastal areas of Luzon are all sinking and the whole Luzon has plenty of active volcanoes, no airport should be built at all on the Philippines’ main island. That’s how ridiculous Solita’s argument is.
Solita also warns of a possible liquefaction in Bulacan. Liquefaction is when solid materials under the ground liquify because of a terrible earthquake and then erupt onto the ground as thick black fluid, scary, like in a horror movie.
In 1990, after a record 7.8 earthquake shook Luzon island, Dagupan, in Pangasinan, 135.7 kms from Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, the epicenter, suffered from liquefaction and terrified residents roamed the streets like zombies going nowhere. Bulacan, just 84 kms from Cabanatuan, did not show any liquefaction, meaning, its soil is more stable. I should know these things. I went to Bulacan, Cabanatuan, and Dagupan right after the 1990 earthquake.
The world’s biggest and booming airports are built near the sea. Kansai Airport of Osaka is built right on top of the sea. That was 27 years ago and thankfully, Kansai has not sunk.
Amsterdam is two meters below sea level. The city’s Schiphol airport is the 14th largest in the world in land area and passengers. I went there in 1972. It was big and impressive. I went back two years ago, AMS is even bigger and more impressive.
If it is bad to build an airport on land that Solita believes is sinking, she should write to the authorities in Kansai and Amsterdam to plead to please immediately remove those airports because they are built right on top of the sea and under sea water, respectively and could become white elephants, soon.
Meanwhile, Rep. Joey Salceda estimates San Miguel will get P50 billion worth of tax incentives—in 50 years. The P50 billion is only 6.75 percent of the P740 billion cost of the airport. For spending P6.75 for every P100 SMC spends to build NMIA, government is going to get for free—after 50 years, a first class airport sitting on 2,500 hectares of prime commercial land.
NAIA was built in 1961. After 60 years and several rehab jobs, its land of 67 hectares alone is worth P200 billion.
It isn’t inconceivable that after 50 years, Aerocity’s 2,500 hectares of prime land and its vertical infrastructure will be worth at least P2 trillion, value that goes to the government for foregoing P50 billion in taxes.
Aerocity will contribute up to 9 percent of GDP in ten years. In ten years, GDP should be P30 trillion; 9 percent of that is P2.7 trillion. In effect, San Miguel will pay back in just a single year what the government gives up in taxes in 50 years.
Since 1967, through the Board of Investments, the government has been giving away tax incentives for projects of lesser magnitude and insignificant economic importance. At PEZA zones, the government spends P200 billion more in taxes foregone than the value added of the products and services of registered enterprises.
