Ayala Land starts works on P6B Negros project

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — With the imminent approval of its contracts by the Commission on Audit (COA), Ayala Land has started the paper works for its more than P6-billion development project in Negros Occidental.

Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. disclosed the other day that Ayala Land has paid documentary stamps and other fees, and is processing building permits and other requirements related to the Capitol Civic Center project that will be constructed on the 7.7-hectare property of the provincial government in this city.

Marañon said he is expecting COA to approve the contracts for the sale and lease of the property to Ayala on May 22, and that Ayala can start the construction of the billion-peso project.

There is no more hindrance to the approval of the contracts as all the requirements set forth by COA were already complied with by the Capitol, said the governor. “This project is already a ‘go,’ it was already signed by Ayala,” he said.

Marañon said the project will need thousands of workers and this will give jobs to unemployed laborers in the province.

The purchase and lease contracts between the Negros Occidental LGU and Ayala Land have been pending in COA for more than nine months already, after Capitol submitted these to COA for approval in July 2011. It was only last month however that COA informed the Capitol that the contracts were deficient because these were not signed.

This development surfaced only after presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda had inquired from COA the status of the contract. Lacierda visited Bacolod last month and Marañon brought up the matter to him.

Shortly after that, Ma. Gracia Pulido-Tan, chairperson of COA, inhibited herself from hearing the case, citing malicious insinuations hurled against her and the commissioners by the Bacolod media.

The media reported that Tan’s husband was giving legal services to Henry Sy and his family, who own SM Prime Holdings, the other bidder to the property and was questioning in courts the contracts granted to Ayala.

The contracts were signed by Marañon, Ayala Land president Antonino Aquino and Ayala Land senior vice president Jose Emmanuel Jalandoni last April 26, and submitted to COA last April 30.

The Provincial Board had also ratified the contract. It previously ratified the unsigned contracts in July last year.

Under the contracts, Ayala Land will buy from Negros Occidental 3.6587 hectares worth P750,033,500 subject to an initial payment of 50 percent, with the balance to be paid on a quarterly basis over a one-year period, the deed of sale states.

To be leased is 4.0481 hectares at P2,955,133 a month, with rent increasing at 10 percent every five years. Ayala will deposit P35,461,356 covering one-year rent, the contracts stated.

The P6-billion Capitol Civic Center is an integrated mixed-use civic and commercial district, with retail, office, residential and hotel components, and is envisioned to be the growth center of Negros Occidental. — (FREEMAN)