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The
country’s first koi or Japanese carp hotel is being
constructed in Hacienda San Benito in Lipa, Batangas.
Basically, the koi, all of which are imported from where
they were originally found in Niigata, Japan, will be
housed in a giant 750 square meter lagoon. Every
homeowner of the integrated leisure-farm project will be
assigned one distinctive koi (read: they can even give
it a nice anime name if they like), which will be
brought to their home whenever they are visiting. When
they leave the farm for their day jobs, the koi will be
returned to the lagoon, where they will be able to grow
faster.
Hacienda
San Benito is a first leisure real-estate project of
Milrose Realty Development Corp., which is majority
owned by the Ocampo family. The family is also into
banking (First Macro Bank) and food (Sonja’s Cupcakes
and Good Earth restaurant). In fact, the core property
was put together through several foreclosed properties.
Interestingly, Milrose is setting aside 50 percent of
the entire development for open spaces, which include
the koi lagoon, the vegetable and fruit farm, a bee
farm, and areas where goats, horses and ostriches are
bred and can be used by homeowners. The industry
practice is to set aside 10 percent for open spaces. Oh
yes, homeowners are automatically members of HSBC, which
has nothing to do with banking but is the acronym for
Hacienda San Benito Cooperative. Each coop share is
equivalent to 100 square meters (sq m). Since the
smallest lot size is about 270 sq m., that means each
lot owner has at least two shares in the coop, which
will manage the farm.
No, the
project does not have the same owners as nearby The
Farm. Yes, the Aranetas have a couple of hectares of
land nearby. It just so happens that both are in the
municipality of San Benito.
Did you
know 1:
Even as remittances are expected to increase by 10
percent to $15 billion this year, deployment is
projected to grow by only 3 percent. The discrepancy
could be traced to the upgrading of the skills and
paycheck of overseas Filipinos (read: more professionals
and skilled workers are leaving the country).
Did you
know 2:
Here’s the latest on the 10 nurses accused by the
Sentosa group of abandoning their patients in a New
York-based nursing home. Basically, the nurses filed for
a writ of prohibition before the New York Supreme
Court, which put on hold the start of criminal
proceedings against them scheduled to start two weeks
from now.
Meanwhile, the nurses have gotten the support of Local
1199, the largest union of health-care workers in the
United. Local 1199 said the nurses’ “collective and
concerted action of resigning from their jobs was a
protected labor activity.” The union said Filipino
nurses were under no obligation to give the mandatory
10-day notice of their resignation since they were not
represented by any labor union or collective bargaining
agent.
Earlier,
the New York State Education Department, which regulates
the conduct of nurses, ruled that the nurses did not
abandon their patients |
