Palace: Court ruling resolves NAIA-3 controversy

A key Malacañang official said Monday that the final ruling of a Pasay regional trial court telling the government to immediately pay the consortium that built the still unused Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA-3) resolves the controversy over ownership of the facility. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita disclosed that the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco), majority shareholder in the consortium, and its other partners keen were so keen on fast-tracking the compensation process that they have given the government a free hand on to how to divide the initial P3 billion among them. Other shareholders in the consortium are the German Fraport AG, and the Japanese Takenaka Corp. and Asahikosan Corp. "What we're just finishing is the completion of the airport, the official report of the valuators and (securing) the writ of possession," said Ermita, who is the head of the Cabinet Policy Group handling the NAIA-3 case. The NAIA-3 is reportedly 97 percent completed even as the independent valuators, agreed upon by the government and Piatco, are still determining the actual value of the facility to determine the full amount of compensation that would be given to the consortium as ordered by the Supreme Court (SC) in its writ of execution in March this year. Once the government begins the compensation process by releasing the P3 billion, which has been held in escrow since last year, the Pasay RTC is expected to issue a writ of execution that would formally give the government ownership of the disputed facility. -GMANews.TV