No more bidding set for P’panga Mimosa project

By Punto Central Luzon

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga – Clark Development Corporation president and CEO Felipe Antonio Remollo announced Monday the 215-hectare Mimosa Leisure Estate will not be handed over to a private firm as earlier planned.

Remollo cited “practical reasons” as the three major entities of the MLE earns close to P260 million yearly.

He said Holiday Inn Resort alone earns about P170 million annually.

Remollo also said that the casino gets an income of some P70 million, while the Mimosa Golf course earns P20 million yearly.

The CDC president added that he opened the operations of the MLE to private firms but it failed.

“We were asking a P250 million yearly rental to any firm but no one took it,” said Remollo. He said he had junked the earlier bid of some P160 million as yearly rental with a one-time payment of P1 billion.

“For practical reasons, we will not bid it out because the CDC will earn more and the one-time payment of P1 billion will be easily earned after a few years,” he added.

Remollo said he will instead ask “experts in management” to handle the three major entities of the MLE. In this way, he added, they will earn “more and better.”

Last May, Remollo announced that there will be a public bidding for the MLE by October.

The CDC, which took control and management of the MLE in December 1999 by virtue of a court order, failed to privatize the premiere leisure estate four times.

The last bidding happened during the term of former CDC President and CEO BenignoRicafort who was replaced by Remollo in April.

The MLE has a recreational and residential complex, a 36-hole all-weather golf course designed by the Honolulu-based team Nelson Wright and Haworth, casino and hotel operated by Holiday Inn.