16 Oct. 2025 – The Public-Private Partnership Pre-Qualification Bids and Awards Committee (PBAC) of the city has officially recommended to Mayor Benjamin Magalong the award of the Baguio City Integrated Terminal (BCIT) project to Megawide Construction Corporation.
This was contained in Resolution No. 1 series of 2025 issued by the PPP PBAC headed by City Treasurer Alex Cabarrubias on Oct. 14, 2025.
As stipulated in the resolution, no competing proposals were submitted during the comparative challenge process which commenced on July 16, 2025 and ended at 1 p.m. on Oct. 14, 2025 prompting the PBAC’s unanimous decision to recommend awarding the project to Megawide, consistent with the Public-Private Partnership Code, its Implementing Rules and Regulations and the project’s tender documents.
The PBAC recommendation followed a comprehensive PPP process.
Timeline
It will be recalled that on June 28, 2024, Megawide was issued the Certificate of Successful Negotiations and reconfirmed as the Original Proponent for the BCIT project.
The City Development Council subsequently confirmed the project on August 27, 2024 via Resolution No. 2024-011.
On June 2, 2025, the city council adopted Ordinance No. 42 series of 2025 approving the development of the project with conditions and authorizing the city mayor to sign the lease agreement.
To ensure transparency and competitiveness and as part of the PPP process, Executive Order No. 57 was issued by the mayor on June 20, 2025 establishing the PBAC to oversee the procurement and open the BCIT project for a comparative challenge.
On June 26, 2025, the PBAC issued an Invitation to Bid/Qualify and Submit
Comparative Proposals and on July 16, 2025, the body issued the Instruction to Challengers, formally notifying all prospective challengers that the complete set of Tender Documents is now available for purchase and that the deadline for the submission of comparative bids is set on October 14, 2025.
As part or the comparative challenge process, the PBAC conducted Pre-Bid Conference on August 27, 2025.
Despite these efforts, no competing proposals were submitted by the deadline prompting the PBAC to recommend awarding the project to Megawide.
City Council Conditions
The City Council’s approval of the project came after a 120-day review and with major conditions imposed to protect the city’s interests and stakeholders.
The conditions covered changes in the lease agreement particularly the removal of clauses allowing the proponent to operate in-city transport services and requiring the city’s assistance in securing permits; ensuring financial safeguard by removing the requirement for the city to maintain a blocked bank account; and retention of the city’s authority to reclassify or rezone the terminal site only if aligned with the project and legal limits.
Other conditions sought to ensure traffic management, stable lease income, oversight on land use, social safeguards for settlers, involvement of local communities, joint approval on fee hikes, use of local labor, support for local small businesses and cooperation on ancestral land claims.
Stakeholder inputs were also incorporated, covering parking, revenue sharing, fare discounts, dispute resolution, asset transfer, and traffic solutions.
Next Steps
As per the PPP process, the mayor is given seven days to approve the PBAC recommendation, three days to issue a Notice of Award (NOA) and seven days to publish the same.
The proponent will be given 20 days to fulfill the requirements under the NOA afterwhich these will be reviewed as to compliance within five days leading to the next steps such as the execution of the PPP contract and submission of the same to the PPP Center.
The BCIT project is one of the city’s big ticket projects under the PPP program.
It aims to develop an integrated terminal in Dontogan barangay along Marcos Highway that will cater to provincial buses coming from outside Baguio to serve as passenger transfer terminals to different modes of transportation going into the city.
It was envisioned to help decentralize vehicular traffic in the congested central business district. ** Aileen P. Refuerzo
