A powerhouse cast

Talk about a powerhouse cast.

Ricky Razon of ICTSI, Freddie Burgos of Landco, Ramon Sy of International Exchange Bank, Wilson Lim of the stock exchange, and Rally Martinez formerly of RFM’s Philtown have banded together to form Xcell Property that recently won in the bidding for that Philrealty Property in Fort Bonifacio, besting the likes of Megaworld, Robinsons Land, and Philtown when it posted a bid of P800 million for the two lots. The company used to go under the name of Next Properties.

Its first project called The Icon Residences which will be launched anytime this month, is a 32-storey twin tower high-rise reasonable luxury residential condominium with cuts of between 40 and 100 square meters and prices of between P4 and P8 million (compared to its neighbors whose unit prices can go up as high as P30 million), most of which will be facing the Manila Golf Club. And unlike its neighbors, this new project will only have 10 units to a floor compared to the average 12 to 14.

Located near Pacific Plaza Towers and One McKinley Place, expect the units to sell like hotcakes when it is turned over to the buyers three years from now.

So why did Freddie Burgos who already heads Landco decide to put in his own money in this new venture? Or why did Ricky Razon decide to enter the real estate business for the first time? Or why did Rally Martinez leave a high-paying job as head of Philtown to be managing partner of this new company?

They believe that a real estate company does not have to be owned and managed by landed families to become successful. Professional entrepreneurs like these people can make a lot of difference.

Rally, who was behind the success of One McKinley Place, also puts into good use his key learnings from his previous endeavor. He says that any amenity other than a pool, gym, or function room will just be a waste and will only serve to increase the association dues. Gone are the days when you overdeliver, he says.

Was It Worth Fighting For?

Can’t say he didn’t try.

After four years of serving the government in various capacities, our friend Cito Lorenzo has finally decided to return to the private sector.

His decision to join government did not come easy, especially for his family and friends some of who thought that it was a crazy idea. What for? He was a young, rich, and talented businessman whose family owns Del Monte Phils. and Lapanday Holdings, to name a few. He need not be overworked and underpaid doing a thankless government job.

But he prevailed upon his dissenting family and friends because he sincerely wanted to change the agricultural landscape. He was up for the challenge of making his mark in government. He took on the assignments, first as presidential adviser for the creation of one million jobs, then as secretary of agriculture, and then finally as presidential adviser for jobs generation, chairman of Land Bank and Quedancor, with unmatched commitment and passion.

But changing the way things are in government was never going to be an easy task for anyone. The government bureaucracy is not like a private business that can be run professionally, sad to say, although it should be. Not all government employees want to change.

Cito’s resignation is a major loss to the government, but knowing him, he will find a way to contribute to the Filipino’s socio-economic upliftment, especially in the countryside where it is most needed.

Let us fight the fights that we can win.

Readers’ Corner

"I read your column last Feb. 16 having the topic "BI bucks pressure" and I would like to congratulate Immigration Commissioner Alipio for his projects in improving the campaign against illegal aliens and transnational crimes to the level of high technology. Although, I would also like him to know about a personal experience my wife and I had at the Bureau. And actually it wasn’t only us who experienced the situation, there were also other foreigners like Koreans and Filipino-Americans who witnessed it.

My wife and I were there to pay for her annual fee last Feb. 4, since she’s a Thai citizen. And when we finished paying for her annual fee, we saw a notice about Alien Certificate of Registration Identification Card (ACR I-Card). So we asked a lady at Window I for an application form, since she told us that it is compulsory. And so, we submitted the documents at around 9:30 a.m. We waited for the Order of Payment to be processed. Everyone inside the windows were quite busy, but there was one officer who wasn’t do anything, he just stood there and looked at the waiting area. Around 10:15 a.m. we saw a Korean lady submit her paper, then for a while we saw that guy named Mario R. Austria, Jr., coming out from the office to "assist" the Korean. What surprised us was that the Korean lady got her Order of Payment slip earlier than we did, since we were still waiting for our Order of Payment slip. This was witnessed by a lot of people.

After witnessing this, we started to inquire on what is the position of this guy, because it is really unfair for everyone else since we started to apply for the ACR I-Card much, much earlier than the lady did. She was able to pay for her ACR I-Card to the cashier earlier than everyone else did. We looked for the supervisor and Mark Rangel G. Goyena was introduced to us, he said he will talk with Mr. Austria. A lady in the office, also questioned what Mr. Austria was doing, processing only one Korean’s Order of Payment slip. After five minutes of complaining, people who were waiting since 9 a.m., got their Order of Payment slip. Ours was also released. So, we were able to pay for the ACR I-Card fee and followed the rest of the procedure. And we’re supposed to be called through phone to claim for the ACR I-Card after a week. We’re still waiting for the call for pick-up confirmation until today.

We really hope that they can fix this kind of problem. We’re really hopeful that all the improvements of the Immigration Commissioner don’t go to waste, just because of people like Mr. Austria. We don’t know what Mr. Austria’s business is in processing only one applicant’s documents. And come on, why does the immigration need one to two hours to process an Order of Payment slip, while they can process another person’s order of payment slip in 30 minutes.

Thank you very much for giving us the chance to share our experience at the Immigration and that the good Commissioner knows some of the experiences of foreigners in the immigration, so we can improve the system. Honestly, the foreigners are quite afraid to complain about these things, because their documents might be processed more slowly than normal or there might be something suddenly wrong with their documents like surnames which might arise "supposedly" or they might be harassed. - Jerry Midel

For comments, e-mail at [email protected]