2 Payanig lessees get 12-year extension deal

Two firms, including one allegedly linked to Deputy National Security Adviser and former Ilocos Sur governor Luis “Chavit” Singson, were able to get a 12-year extension on their lease of large portions of the government-owned Payanig sa Pasig land despite a government plan to auction off the P18-billion property, an official said yesterday.

Ricardo Abcede, Presidential Commission on Good Government commissioner for litigation, said PCGG-controlled realty firm Mid-Pasig Land Development Corp. – which holds the title to the Payanig property – forged a lease extension contract with Pasig Printing Corp. and Westpoint Development Corp. that would allow the firms to occupy their leased lots for 12 more years.

He said Pasig Printing is reported to have ties with Singson.

Abcede said that the lease rate for both firms was at P200 per square meter a month, and it was already an improvement since the old rates were P120 for Pasig Printing and as low as P90 for Westpoint.

Traders in the area, however, said the prevailing lease rates for nearby establishments range from P500 to P1,000 per square meter.

According to Abcede, the lease extension contracts were signed late last year. The two firms’ original lease contracts ended in 2008. “They came to us and they wanted a longer lease,” he said.

Asked why the PCGG did not hold a public bidding for the lease on areas occupied by the two firms to get better offers, Abcede said this was not an option.

“They’re already in possession of the property,” he said, adding it would be difficult to evict the two firms even if they find other lessees.

Abcede claimed the lease extension contracts contain a provision that the government could take over the properties and privatize them at any time.

He brushed off concerns that the 12-year lease could become a problem when the Supreme Court rules on the claims filed by certain groups on the entire or portions of the property, and gives the government final clearance to auction off the Payanig land.

Among the claimants are the Ortigas family, who claim they were forced to sell the land to the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos during the 1960s. The Ortigas claim is pending at the Supreme Court.

“It is somewhat one-sided in favor of the government because the lease can be interrupted at any time,” Abcede said.

Pasig Printing established the Metrowalk commercial complex and has been operating it since 2004.

Westpoint, on the other hand, established the Ortigas Home Depot complex, also in 2004.

The PCGG, which rented out portions of the Payanig property in 2003, faces problems in collecting lease payments from its lessees. Records show that Westpoint owed the PCGG P30 million in back rentals at one time.

Some lessees have even failed to pay rent since starting their lease, like the Umale family, who operate the Autoville car exchange complex along Ortigas Avenue, other records show.

The Payanig property came into the government’s possession when the late Filipino-Chinese businessman Jose Yao Campos, a close associate of Marcos, surrendered two real estate firms – the Independent Realty Corp. and the Mid-Pasig Land – as well as other assets, to the government in a compromise agreement in 1987.

The agreement between Campos and the PCGG averted the confiscation of United Laboratories, the drug company that Campos founded, by the government, since it was also suspected of being actually owned by Marcos, according to Abcede.

In surrendering the two companies and other firms, Campos admitted he merely held the companies in trust for Marcos, who was their real owner.

The “Payanig sa Pasig” property, called as such because it was the site of a carnival in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is bounded in the north by Ortigas Avenue, the west by Meralco Avenue, the east by Julia Vargas Avenue and the south by the upscale Valle Verde residential enclave.