Under a 50-year concession agreement, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) is building and will operate the New Manila International Airport (NMIA) in Bulacan. Yet, a new study indicated the structure may be submerged before it completes the term of the contract.

Sinking land and rising sea levels driven by climate change may result in the airport’s premature closure, according to an investigation by the environmental watchdog Global Witness.

This fate will spoil the NMIA’s prospects as it is being billed as the world’s third largest even as it is still under construction. The report cited multiple scientists’ findings that SMC’s assessments may have dangerously underestimated regional environmental factors, threatening the project’s viability.

The study revealed that sea levels in Manila are rising by 13 to 15 millimeters (mm) per year, nearly three times the 5.3-mm yearly rate indicated in the planning documents published on the project’s website by SMC.

Studies by the Oscar M. Lopez Center (OMLC), the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the University of the Philippines Department of Geodetic Engineering, and the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA) estimate that sea levels in Manila are rising three times faster than SMC is willing to admit. 

Dr. Rosalie Reyes, who led the Coastal Sea Level Rise (CSLR) project for the Department of Science and Technology, calls the disparity glaring. “I don’t know how they came up with this figure,” she told Global Witness.

SMC claims to have comprehensively addressed the risks posed by the infrastructure’s weight, by land subsidence, and by sea level rise in the airport’s final design, and disputes that any risk of future flooding is backed by scientific evidence.

SMC said it is using more conservative data on the airport’s elevation design, and it was not based on documents published on the project’s website.

It referred to a separate study which is not publicly available. When SMC was pressed, the company declined to share this report and did not disclose the sea-level figures used in it, according to Global Witness.

Compounding the human and environmental cost, Olaf Neussner, a climate change and disaster management specialist who was made a resource person for the report, noted that the published feasibility study was “very unrealistic,” adding that “within 30 years, high tides will probably start coming into the airport area.”

He said that decades from now, even normal tides could spill onto the runways. “Storm surges and tsunamis could shut the airport down entirely for weeks. We’re looking at a disaster-prone project.”

Neussner cited a similar project in Japan that was built on reclaimed land with high levels of subsidence. Kansai International Airport faced catastrophic flooding less than 25 years after opening.

The report also revealed that Boskalis Westminster N.V., the Dutch dredging giant involved in clearing the land for the airport, exited the project prematurely due to sand shortages, leaving the project delayed and in limbo.

Boskalis had promised SMC would develop “hundreds of hectares of new wetlands” as part of an environmental mitigation plan, yet these pledges remain unfulfilled. The $1.5-billion contract was the biggest in Boskalis’ history.

Despite these failures, the Dutch state export credit agency Atradius is insuring the project for over $1.7 billion, and international banks such as ING, HSBC, and Standard Chartered are financing the airport’s construction.

SMC also claimed the compensation or resettlements provided for around 360 displaced households aligned with the country’s regulations and international financing standards, and the airport project adheres to international standards on environmental and social sustainability and all relevant domestic law on such developments.

The company denied any harassment or intimidation by the military and claimed that the local government requested its presence to ensure peace and order in the community, which was contrary to the findings of Global Witness.

The ecological displacement caused by the project will eventually boomerang on SMC, which will have to prepare for the airport turning into a submarine base.