COA forms team to evaluate Ayala-Negros Occ land deal

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines— After almost eight months, the Commission on Audit (COA) has not released its decision yet on its review of the contract between the Negros Occidental provincial government and Ayala Land Inc. on the sale and lease of a 7.7-hectare city property, reportedly at a price of P3.5 billion.

This was because the COA’s Commission Proper (CP) is still forming a technical team to “evaluate and re-appraise the value of the property” and to submit the findings to the CP for another deliberation.

COA spokesperson Gilbert Kintanar, in an interview over Bombo Radyo, said the CP had deliberated on the contract last March 19, and the commission decided to create a technical team from its Technical Services Office to evaluate and re-appraise the value of the property.

The creation of a technical team for property evaluation is a normal process done by the CP in this kind of transaction that involves a big amount, just to ensure that the final contract in the sale of the property will be in favor of the government, Kintanar said.

Kintanar said that as soon as the CP receives the report of the technical team, another meeting to deliberate on the matter will be scheduled, which in this case is tentatively set on April 13.

Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. earlier said the development will change the landscape of Bacolod and create thousands of jobs for Negrenses, as Ayala Land is proposing to develop the 7.7-hectare property into a Capitol Civic Center with P6 billion in investments.

Representative Albee Benitez (3rd district, Negros Occidental), in a separate interview, said he also wished that COA decides on the contract soon because the delay also means that Negrenses are denied of economic benefits of the development.

Benitez, who accompanied Hans Sy, president of SM Prime Holdings, when the latter submitted a proposal to Marañon last year, denied he was behind the COA delay, although he hinted that SM might have a strong case against the Capitol, which is why COA is having a hard time in deciding on the propriety of the contract.

Vincent Patrick Bayhon, external counsel for SM Prime, in a press statement last week, said the firm will pursue the case against the provincial government, contending that it had won the bidding for the property.

He alleged that COA has not approved a “floor price” for the property, which the Capitol used as a basis to declare the re-bidding a failure. “There was such no “floor price” supposedly approved by the COA-6,” Bayhon said in a statement.

On June 24 last year, the Capitol conducted the first bidding. Only Ayala Land participated, prompting the Capitol’s bids and awards committee to declare a failure of bidding but without opening the sealed bid of Ayala.

A second bidding was later held in July 7, and this time both Ayala Land and SM Prime participated. According to Bayhon, SM Prime submitted a higher bid than Ayala Land’s, and the firm he represented, after the BAC certified the proceedings were in order, expected to be declared the winning bidder.

This did not happen, however, because BAC declared a failure of bidding anew citing both bids of SM and Ayala were supposedly below the “floor price” set by COA. Bayhon protested: “The floor price issue was never raised during the re-bidding proper. And now, it turns out that no such floor price had been approved by the COA.”