Manila's controversial international terminal 'to open next year'

Manila airport's mothballed international passenger terminal, dogged by controversy and claims of corruption, should open in late 2008 five years after it was built, officials said Wednesday.
Transport Secretary Leandro Mendoza told a business meeting that legal problems which forced the government to expropriate the ultra-modern, 600-million-dollar terminal were "expected to be settled" by then.
The Philippine International Airport Terminals Co (Piatco) consortium and German private contractor Fraport AG built the international terminal as an alternative to the existing, dilapidated 26-year-old building. They were to operate the terminal for a number of years before handing ownership to the government.
But the administration expropriated the project from Piatco in 2004, claiming major contract irregularities and structural problems. No passengers have passed through the terminal yet.
Mendoza said Japanese company Takenaka Corp had "agreed in principle ... to repair all structural defects free of charge." Takenaka was one of the key construction companies to work on the building. Lawsuits at home and abroad have dogged the project, and a judge and a lawyer involved in the cases have been murdered.
But the government had been encouraged by a World Bank decision in August dismissing a 425-million-dollar claim on the terminal by Fraport AG, said Tirso Serrano, the assistant general manager of the Manila International Airport Authority. Government lawyers believe a similar case filed by Piatco at an international court in Singapore will also be settled in the government's favour soon, Serrano said.
Once the structural problems are addressed "we can start to fly out people and have a soft launch by 2008," Serrano said. Manila's main airport has become so congested that businessmen and tourism officials are calling for a former US airbase north of Manila to be made into the country's new gateway to ease the overcrowding. Mendoza said the government planned to make the Clark airbase, currently used mainly by budget airlines, a new international gateway.