Greed ain’t good

Michael Douglas delivered a shrewd speech in the 1987 movie “Wall Street.” Playing the role as Gordon Gekko, Douglas told shareholders, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” Justifying his words, he added that greed “captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.”

In the last days of 2023, four consortia comprised of local and international conglomerates submitted their bids to rehabilitate the P170.6-billion Ninoy Aquino International Airport in a public-private partnership to upgrade the old, congested air hub.

The Bids and Awards Committee of the Department of Transportation or DoTr then opened the bids submitted by the Manila International Airport Consortium or MIAC, the Asian Airport Consortium, GMR Airports Consortium, and the SMC-SAP and Company Consortium.

Of the four, the most interesting is the SMC-SAP Consortium, composed of diversified conglomerates San Miguel Holdings Corp. (33 percent), RMM Asian Logistics Inc. (30 percent), RLW Aviation Development Inc. (27 percent), and Incheon International Airport Corp. (10 percent), the developer of the world-class South Korean air hub.

Ramon Ang’s San Miguel Corporation is already developing the more than P700-billion New Manila International Airport in Bulacan, which is envisioned to be an alternative gateway to decongest NAIA. But RSA has set his eyes on NAIA, too.

He wants it all! Sky is the limit, they say.

The biggest question here that leaves a bad taste in the mouth is why the DoTr allowed San Miguel to submit a bid despite a limitation on airport operators in the Greater Capital Region or GCR.

The NAIA bid documents prohibit any company that operates a GCR airport to be the sole private concessionaire of the airport. These airports include the Clark International Airport, Bulacan Airport, and the Sangley Airport.

In addition, a GCR operator who wants to participate in the NAIA bidding has to be a part of a consortium and limit its ownership stake to 20 percent. As mentioned,  San Miguel Holdings Corp. owns 33 percent of the SMC-SAP Consortium.

And who owns RMM Asian Logistics and RLW Aviation Development?

A thorough search on Google yielded no results as if those companies do not exist except as part of the SMC-SAP consortia.

Greed harms other people

In the Bible, St. Paul described greed as the root of all evil. Indeed, greed is seen negatively because it inflicts harm to others and can result in adverse societal outcomes. In their article published in the journals of the Academy of Management, researchers Long Wang and J. Keith Murnighan said, “Individual greed benefits one person at the expense of others.”

Others define greed as “a selfish motivation to acquire an unfairly excessive amount of a resource at the expense of others.”

That was proven in the 2008 global financial crisis when greedy traders, bankers, and Wall Street moguls sold and bought sophisticated derivatives, with the mortgage-backed securities doing the most damage.

Greed is often associated with corruption. Greeder people are perceived as unethical, immoral, and dishonest. An independent study also showed that greedier people are more likely to accept bribes.

In truth, greed is not good and has not worked in real life.