By Butch
del Castillo / Omerta
(This
column, nota bene, was submitted to the BusinessMirror Desk shortly
before the Makati City court issued its decision on the case.)
NOW
we are told that another valuable asset of the national
government—which should be worth more than P300 million by now—was
illegally conveyed or transferred to controversial businessman Reghis
Romero. If the national government wins its case, Reghis Romero would
lose control of the Harbour Centre Ports Terminals Inc. (HCPTI).
This
case, mind you, is apart from the 5.6 hectares, or 80 percent, of
“Broadcast City” that Romero had taken over as his own under a
joint-venture agreement (JVA) with the government-owned IBC 13. The
takeover has been described by the Office of the Solicitor General as
“grossly disadvantageous” to the government.
The
other prime government asset that Romero has managed to acquire is
the block of controlling shares in HCPTI owned by the Home Guaranty
Corp. HGC is now trying to recover these shares from the Romero group
through the courts to protect its huge exposure in the
multibillion-peso Smokey Mountain Development and Reclamation Project
(SMDRP) in which the government has lost untold billions.
Romero
has been saying that the controlling block of HCPTI shares he
now holds was part of a government payment package to him for
the P627 million in “advances” he had allegedly made in
the first phase of the SMDRP, which failed when Romero was in charge.
The
questions that remain unsatisfactorily answered, however, are not
only how and why such controlling shares became part of the payment
package, but also why R-II Builders had to be paid at all when
it miserably failed to deliver on his contractual commitments to the
Smokey Mountain project.
The
HGC has filed an urgent motion asking the Makati Regional Trial Court
Branch 147 to appoint a receiver for HCPTI to prevent the dissipation
of the latter’s assets, which Romero has allegedly been illegally
enjoying for several years now. On top of this, R-II Builders
refuses to recognize HGC’s standing as a stockholder of record!
(The HGC has had to file for mandamus to compel recognition of all
original HCPTI shares conveyed and assigned to HGC.)
It
was only recently (September 13) when the HGC filed a
“declaration of nullity of conveyance” covering the 285.5 million
shares in HCPTI owned by HGC. In its complaint, the HGC claimed the
questioned block of shares was unlawfully transferred to Romero’s
R-II Builders, and subsequently to the holding company of the Romero
group called HCP Holdings.
Lawyer
Manny R. Sanchez, former Rizal congressman who now heads the HGC as
its president, told the DWIZ on Tuesday that Vice President and
housing czar Jejomar C. Binay wanted the HGC to consolidate its
assets—consistent with its key role as fund mobilizer in the
housing industry. (Binay is chairman of the Housing and Urban
Development and Coordinating Council or HUDCC. He is also a member of
the HGC board along with Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima,
chairman; former National Economic and Development
Authority Director General Cayetano Paderanga and Sanchez.)
The
asset pool was created in 1994 as alternative funding scheme for
the failed Smokey Mountain project. Romero’s R-II Builders (with a
paid-up capital of only P500,000) had bagged the P6-billion contract
a year earlier, but it soon became evident that it did not have, and
could not possibly raise, the billions needed to see the Smokey
Mountain and Reclamation Project through to completion.
Under
its original JVA with the National Housing Authority (NHA), R-II
Builders formally committed to “fully finance” all aspects of the
project, including the leveling of the huge mountain of garbage and
the reclamation of up to 79 hectares of land from the Manila Bay to
serve as “enabling component of the project.”
Under
that JVA, R-II Builders was supposed to construct 2,992 units of
temporary housing, level the Smokey Mountain, construct 3,520
units of medium-rise housing and develop an industrial-commercial
site within the area.
The
HGC said in a “briefer” on the project that Romero failed to
accomplish all of the above. His R-II Builders “failed to
finance the SMDRP…the construction was thus suspended for some
time, pending the adoption of a new funding scheme.”
In
effect, the government took over the Smokey Mountain project about 18
months later when then-President Fidel V. Ramos approved the
“securitization concept” to enable the government to raise the
huge funding needed for the Smokey Mountain project. But what shocked
the business community was that R-II Builders remained very
much part of the revised project.”
“Instead
of being banned with extreme prejudice from the project as it
deserved, it managed to insinuate itself as one of the four principal
signatories to the asset pool, including the NHA, R-II Builders,
and—for the first time—the HGC (formerly the Home Insurance
Guaranty Corp.),” an NHA official said.
It has
so far managed to collect from the government a total of P627 million
in cash and in kind. But it is the “in kind” part of the payment
package—that gave Romero control of the HCPTI—that the HGC
considers illegal.
In
its summation of the very expensive Smokey Mountain project—which
had ballooned to P9.82 billion as of October 2002—the HGC revealed
the following:
•
R-II
Builders, without HGC’s knowledge and prior consent, leased out 15
of the lots assigned and conveyed to HGC on the pretext that Romero
was the authorized administrator of the lots. This is being contested
because the Smokey Mountain asset pool has been terminated and
the remaining undisposed assets have been assigned and conveyed to
HGC, titles to which have been transferred and registered in the name
of the HGC.
•
HGC
has filed estafa cases against officers of R-II Builders for
leasing out the properties under HGC’s name located at the Manila
Harbour Center. Besides that, R-II Builders collected payments from
the lessees and pocketed such payments.
•
Apart
from shares originally conveyed to it, the HGC is also seeking the
recovery of 285 million shares illegally paid to R-II Builders for
alleged expenses that it should have shouldered as project proponent.
•
Under
a Contract of Usufruct over the Berthing Space conveyed to HGC, the
latter was supposed to be paid 5 percent of the gross revenues of
HCPTI. HCPTI did not pay from the start and HGC canceled the
contract. A court has granted HGC’s motion for preliminary
attachment for the unpaid 5 percent share.
•
With
the cancellation of the Contract of Usufruct, HCPTI has lost the
right to use the berthing space. HGC has asked the Philippine Ports
Authority to cancel HCPTI’s permit to operate.
•
After
noting that the Romero group used HGC lots and common areas for
illegally stockpiling mountains of coal, the HGC called in all the
regulatory agencies to stop the practice.
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