The idea was to come up with concrete solutions on how to handle the 13,400 tons of trash generated each day by these areas. Headed by former Presidential Committee on Flagship Programs and Projects chair Secretary Roberto Aventajado, the waste management committee came up with, among other things, the Metro Manila Solid Waste Management Project, which aimed to dump a third of the metropolis's daily trash into a sanitary landfill. This was approved four months later by the Metro Manila Development Council. Estrada himself gave the project a go signal in January 2000, and solicitations for the proposals were first published on Feb. 13, 2000. Yet the businessman notes that even during the first quarter of 1999, the Puzons were already busy inviting government officials and people involved in waste management to at least two elaborate presentations on landfills in a five-star hotel in Metro Manila.
Personal relationships are a factor in government contracts.
According to the project's TOR, each proponent had to submit its own proposed site and feasibility study for a sanitary landfill as part of the proposal. These requirements certainly take time to accomplish so that anyone with no benefit of guidance would find it impossible to secure them right away,'' observes the businessman. In fact, the process proved so time-consuming that of the 17 companies that purchased proposal documents for the project, only nine actually submitted proposals. Of these nine, only PEC and Dizon-CGEA passed the technical evaluation stage. John Gabriel Puzon admits that his family arranged the landfill presentations that had government officials in attendance, saying that they started holding these as early as 1998.