Transfer without cost

In preparation for a possible and anticipated long Sabbatical, I reviewed some of my notes. I was really not looking for anything in particular but certainly I hoped to find items that I could dispose of or put finally in the trash. As I skimmed thru a maze of topics, one issue caught my attention. It came in the form of a phrase “transfer without cost”. 

I could not trace the entire news story anymore and I was quite aware that the memory of people as old as I am sometimes would prove to be tricky if not unreliable. All that I could remember was that this phrase came side by side with a supposed sale of a lot in the South Real Properties (South reclamation project, if you may) of Cebu City to a government agency. Even the name of that government arm eluded my recollection although it could be that which is mandated to make sure that our country has enough electrical power.

The feature of the story was that it was the second sale by the city government of a parcel of lot in the reclaimed area of south Cebu City, the first being to the Filinvest Land Inc. And we were ecstatic because it would appear that the attractiveness of the SRP to parties with huge funds, had, after all, not waned despite the ruckus a congressional investigation poised on the agreement. So, the topic being salacious, the news wove around it in tales of millions of pesos going to the city coffers.

Somewhere in the news however, (and that was why I wrote it down in my notes), a city councilor had a Freudian slip. Or did he goof or was it intentional? Notwithstanding the abundance of caution, he mentioned that the sale by the city government to the national agency was covered by the phrase “transfer without cost”. The honorable city legislator made no attempt to explain the term so that ordinary mortals, like me, would comprehend the consequence of the deal.

In my understanding, this jargon is implicit in transactions involving different agencies of the government. It effectively replaces the more specific nomenclature of “donation” but is taken in exactly the same context. I hope I am wrong. When, for example, the city of Cebu under a so-called “big brother program” donated buses (which were originally given to Cebu City by Kaohsiung City in Taiwan) to other local government units, the instrument carried the phrase “transfer without cost”. It meant that our city gave away those vehicles but the recipients did not have to pay for them.

“Transfer without cost” the way I understand it, means that the ownership by a certain government agency of say, motor vehicles, is transferred to another government agency without the legal obligation of the latter’s paying the cost as it is attendant in normal contract of sales. What is involved here is, in simple words, a donation.

If this is the context in this “transfer without cost” of a lot in the SRP by the city to the power agency of the government, then what we entered into was a donation and naturally, we did not earn a single centavo by way of payment of the land. If that was the case, our city authorities, in fulfillment of their sworn duty, should have taken their best efforts to explain this to us.

Unfortunately, that did not seem to be the situation. I could not recall of anyone of our elected leaders saying that in unmistakable language. On the contrary, much was said about the huge amount involved in the deal. By letting it known that the transaction was worth millions of pesos, we were made to believe that the coffers of was city was enriched by millions of hard cash.

To erase some uncertainties, let our officials speak of the truth. Was the deal one of sale were we earned a lot of money? Or did we donate to a government agency a parcel of our SRP land and therefore we earned nothing?