City gets P348 million downpayment

CEBU, Philippines - Filinvest Land Incorporated made its first payment for the outright purchase of 10.6 hectares of the South Road Properties yesterday at the Cebu City Hall after a day’s work of working through the bureaucracy.

The check represents the first installment for the purchase of the property, which is apart from an additional 40-hectare joint venture of the two entities.

Andrew Gotianun Jr., president of FLI came over for the turn over of the payment.

The ceremony was originally set at 2 p.m., but was delayed as FLI would not hand the payment unless a clean title without the annotations stating the 20 meters salvage area which was placed in the Original Certificate of Title for the property would be produced.

Gotianun was with Vice President for Visayas and Mindanao Tristan Las Marias when he handed over the P348 million check to Acting Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama and the other city officials in a simple ceremony at past five in the afternoon.

Cebu City Administrator Francisco Fernandez said that when the SRP obtained its title, its original land classification was agricultural, from sea waters reclaimed into dry land.

When the reclamation was fully completed, the Housing Land Use and Regulatory Board (HLURB) and the Land Management Section (LMS) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) issued Certifications that the whole property is now declared as urban/industrial.

“Since it is now classified as industrial, it follows that the salvage zone will now only be three meters from the highest tide, only three meters ‘unbuildable’,” Fernandez said.

He said the mother title was placed under mortgage at the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) when the city took out a loan from Japan and was only taken out this week for titles to be made for smaller portions.

When the first two titles which were to be given to FLI in exchange for the P348 million payment were released, it bore the same annotation as the mother title.

“We here at City Hall are not technical people and it was only pointed to us by FLI in the morning, so I was expecting it was difficult to attain, but Mike (Rama) moved heaven and earth just to realize the turn over,” Fernandez said.

Rama called the assistance of DENR Secretary Lito Atienza, who sent Regional Executive Director Leonardo Sibaluca to assist in the making of the corrections of the title covering the outright purchase or the sale properties.

Officials from the Registry of Deeds led by Atty. Eugenio Gemarino were also there to make corrections on Transfer Certificate of Titles 15962 and 15971 which were turned over to FLI.

TCT 15962 covers 20,000 square meters of the 10.6 hectares that have been purchased while TCT 15971 covers 97,621 square meters of the 40 hectares for the joint venture.

Also undertaken yesterday under the Memorandum of Closing was the delivery of the remaining titles to LBP as a keeper of the escrow account.

A Special Power of Attorney was also signed in favor of FLI and several necessary undertakings that need to be done pertaining to the development including drainage development, road right of way and industrial road access.

FLI is pouring P25 billion as its initial investment for the project. The total amount could reach P80 billion in 20 years. — /NLQ (THE FREEMAN)