PCGG Commissioner Victoria Avena told The STAR the lease agreement for the property was still being reviewed by the Privatization Council, a multi-agency body overseeing the privatization of government assets.
Avena declined to give more details on the agreement, particularly on why the Westpoint Construction and Development Corp., owned by a certain Victor Chan, had started construction on a part of the property when the lease for it was still under review.
"Maybe we should not talk about that. It is still under deliberation by the Privatization Council. It is still under consideration," she said.
The property in question is a 13-hectare parcel of land in the Ortigas business district of Pasig. It was famous in the 1990s as the site of a giant carnival known as the "Payanig sa Pasig."
Nestled between Ortigas and Meralco avenues, the property is now estimated to be worth P18.5 billion, a significant increase from the P10 billion minimum bid price set by the PCGG when the commission first tried to sell it in the 1990s.
The property came under government control when the real estate company that owned it, Independent Realty Corp. (IRC), was turned over to the PCGG by businessman Jose Yao Campos in 1987. Campos had admitted holding the property in trust for the late President Ferdinand Marcos.
The STAR learned last week, through the help of PCGG chairman Haydee Yorac, that the IRC, managed by executives named by Malacañang and appointed by the PCGG, had quietly leased four hectares of the property to Westpoint under an agreement signed last November. Another small part was leased to Pasig Printing Co. in March last year.
Even Yorac, it was learned, was unaware that the property had been leased, much less that almost finished structures had been erected on it. Among them include a soon-to-be-opened high-end restaurant and a golf driving range.
The STAR had repeatedly tried to get the side of IRC president and chief executive officer Ernesto Jalandoni and general manager Antonio Morelos concerning the ongoing construction activities but had failed.
Unnamed PCGG sources said the lease of the property could not have escaped the knowledge of top officials below Yorac, since three of its four commissioners are directors of the IRC board, namely Avena, Ruben Carranza and Vyva Victoria Aguirre.
Carranza could not be reached for comment as he is out of the country, while Aguirre would not return the calls this writer made to her office.
Sources said that the existence of seemingly permanent structures on the lease portion would hinder government plans to sell the whole property through another bidding.
Plans to sell the property were said to have been shelved because of the dismal state of the real estate industry.
In a related development, Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye revealed yesterday that President Arroyo had instructed the PCGG "to get the best price" for sequestered companies like the International Broadcasting Corp. (IBC).
"I believe the general instructions, not only for this particular privatization effort, are to secure the best price for this asset," Bunye said.
Fears were raised that the sale of IBC might be politically motivated when it was learned that the Delta Broadcasting Corp. was negotiating to buy into the network.
Delta is owned by the family of Bro. Mike Velarde of the El Shaddai religious movement. Its earlier attempt to buy another sequestered broadcasting company, the Radio Philippines Network, was blocked by the PCGG.
"We believe that for as long as the price is right and both parties are amenable to the terms and conditions this will be well within the privatization program of the government," Bunye said.
But selling IBC at a "good price" may be a tall order for the PCGG since the company has been bleeding money since it was sequestered by the government in 1986 after the EDSA revolution that overthrew Marcos.
Last year alone IBC lost as much as P63 million, with over P50 million in debt to local and foreign banks. A bleak financial outlook also faces RPN.
Bunye sought to downplay suspicions linking the planned sale of IBC to the May 10 elections.
He said that setting a "timetable" for the sale is "difficult" as the PCGG had "been trying to privatize the sequestered companies for some time."
Both RPN and IBC were previously owned by Marcos crony Roberto Benedicto but are now being run by the government through directors appointed by Malacañang.
Delta’s original offer to buy into RPN was rejected because of supposedly one-sided provisions in favor of Delta. The Velarde company offered P300 million in capital infusion. But the amount would be paid on installment. Of this only P30 million would be paid up front, while the rest would come from the company’s future earnings in the primetime slots it would sell. — With Marichu Villanueva