Manila Bay land broker surfaces in CamSur

MANILA, Philippines - A businessman who allegedly brokered a Manila Bay land reclamation-acquisition deal in 1995, and who has since disappeared, has surfaced in Camarines Sur.

George Triviño is reportedly now the majority owner of Caramoan Dam Hydroelectric Power Corp.

Caramoan town has drawn a lot of tourists to Camarines Sur owing primarily to its pristine beaches. It is part of the proposed new province of Nueva Camarines.

Rep. Arnulfo Fuentebella of CamSur’s fourth district is the principal author of the bill creating the new province.

Provincial officials said Triviño’s company has yet to break ground, although the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) already approved in December last year its articles of incorporation.

SEC documents show that Caramoan Dam Hyrdroelectric Power Corp.’s authorized capital stock, consisting of one million shares, is valued at P100 million, one-fourth of which is subscribed. Triviño owns 90 percent of the firm’s subscribed shares.

Other incorporators of Triviño’s company are Analyn Gaitan, who is the firm’s interim treasurer, Rolando Mangulabnan, Josefino Gascon, and Pedro Cabuay Jr. They have 6,250 subscribed shares each.

According to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), which investigated the land reclamation-purchase deal between Public Estates Authority and Amari Coastal Bay Resources Corp., it was Triviño who brokered the transaction.

The Senate investigated the irregularity and found that he received as much as P300 million in commissions for the project.

The PCIJ report said the broker received on April 28, 1995 “31 checks worth P300 million from Amari Coastal Bay Resources Corp., a Thai-Filipino company that had just entered into a P1.8-billion contract with the government to buy reclaimed property off the Manila-Cavite coastal road.”

“All the checks were deposited into an account at the UN Avenue branch of the Traders Royal Bank,” PCIJ said.

“As soon as they cleared, on Tuesday, May 2, just nine days before the local elections, P273 million was withdrawn from that account. The following day, the balance of P27 million was drawn from the same bank,” it said.