Cebu Airport Found To Be Owned By GMR

 Megawide Acted As Dummy!

17 December 2020

Mactan Cebu Airport Operator GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corporation (GMCAC) was found by the government of the Philippines to have broken its Constitution and Laws, according to the Justice Department, as the Office of the Ombudsman suspends Mactan  Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) General Manager Steve Dicdican for allowing Foreigners to run Mactan Airport.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) earlier filed before the Department of Justice a case against Mactan  Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) General Manager Steve Dicdican and 15 others, including 11 foreign nationals, for Anti-Dummy Law provisions, risking the cancellation of the consortium license and permit to run Mactan Airport and forfeiture of its security deposits.

GMCAC is a consortium between Megawide Construction Corporation (Megawide), a company incorporated under Philippine laws, and GMR Group, a foreign airport operator based in India.

The  NBI-Anti-Fraud Division (NBI-AFD) claimed that the respondents “connived, colluded, schemed and acted together to violate the 1987 Constitution and the Anti-Dummy Law.”

NBI-AFD Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Director Eric B. Distor said this is not about the Concession Agreement Dicdican claims but concerns about violation of "Anti-Dummy Law".

Distor said MCIAA Officials allowed foreign contractors to take over the management of the airport which they are expressly prohibited to do under Philippine Laws. 

NBI said airports are industry invested with national interest that no foreigners should run it other than Filipinos. That is not the case of Cebu Airport operator. 

Under the Concession Agreement signed by Megawide and MCIAA, the airport operator should not be violating the Constitution or any Philippine Laws, otherwise they lose the right to operate the airport and pay government damages for fraud and misrepresentation.

Aside from Dicdican, named respondents in the complaint were GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corporation (GMCAC) Filipino officers Manuel Louie Ferrer, Edgar Saavedra, Oliver Tan and JZ Dela Cruz.

The foreign nationals named in the complaint were eight Indian nationals Srivinas Bommidala, Vivek Singhai, Ravi Bhatnagar, Ravishankar Saravu, Sudarshan MD, Kumar Gaurav, Magesh Nambiar and Rajesh Madan.

The other foreigners mentioned in the complaint were Singaporean national P. Sripathy, Ghanaian Andrew Acquaah-Harrison and Irish national Michael Lenane.

Based on the evidence obtained by the Office of the Ombudsman, the MCIA is operated, administered, and managed by non-Filipinos more particularly by an Irish, a Ghanaian and several Indians who have profound control, enjoyment, and control over a Philippine public utility, with the knowledge and approval of the Filipino officers of CMIAA and GMCAC.

“Evidence submitted by the complainant and gathered by the investigators showed that the foreign nationals were actually performing executive and managerial positions, contrary to the provisions of Article XII of the Constitution,” the NBI said.