Six non-governmental organizations (NGOs) recently filed plunder and graft charges before the Office of the Ombudsman against incumbent and former officials of the erstwhile Public Estates Authority or PEA (now the Public Reclamation Authority, or PRA) for allegedly conspiring with property developer Manila Bay Development Corp. (MBDC) to defraud the government in the sale of a 40-hectare reclamation property along Roxas Boulevard in Parañaque City in 1988 worth P41 billion for just P472 million.
In their complaint, Sagip Buhay, Cluster Inc., Keepers of Heart Organization, Samar Women’s Group, Tinio Women’s Group from Leyte-Samar and the Silcas Women’s Welfare of Biñan City said the PEA defrauded the government and the Filipino people in “the biggest scam of [state] asset disposition.”
The NGOs told the Ombudsman that succeeding officials of the PEA should have rescinded the “onerous” contract—and then sold or leased the seaside estate at the correct market value—more so because of MBDC’s failure to develop it into a Greenhills-style commercial center within five years’ time, as required in the 1988 Deed of Sale.
Facing the plunder and graft charges are PEA Chairman Roberto Muldong and General Manager Peter Anthony Abaya, and Directors Virgilio Ambion, Manuel Medina, Edilberto de Jesus, Reyaldo Robles and Rene Enrique Silos; then-General Manager Eduardo Zialcita, plus the chairman and board directors of PEA in 1988 along with their respective successors.
The rest of the respondents in these plunder and graft raps are the incumbent and former MBDC officials and board directors, led by the company’s President George Chua, who signed the allegedly onerous Deed of Absolute Sale with Zialcita in 1988, the complainant said.
The groups also cited violations of Republic Act (RA) 7080, or the Anti-plunder law, and RA 3019, or the Antigraft and Corrupt Practices Act, arising from the “deliberate shortchangings, deceptions and conspiracies by our public officials in connivance with private persons against the welfare of the common folk and the interest of our country when they entered into a contract so disadvantageous to our government and eventually affecting the lives of every Filipino.”
They also accused the above-mentioned incumbent and former PEA and MBDC executives of “defrauding” the government and the Filipino people of billions of pesos in potential revenues, as this prime property along Roxas Boulevard in Parañaque City was sold 27 years ago for a mere P1,100 per square meter (sq m) when the prevailing market price back then was P40,000 per sq m.
At that prevailing market price in 1988, this prime seaside property totaling 410,467 sq m—MBDC eventually named it the Central Business Park II—was easily worth P20 billion, but it was sold by the PEA for only P472 million, the complainants said.
They also urged the government to seize this MBDC property based on Section 9 of RA 7080, which empowers the state to recover unlawfully acquired public properties without any regard for prescription, laches or estoppel.
The NGOs’ recent complaint raised to eight the number of plunder and graft cases that have been filed against these incumbent and former PEA and MBDC officials in connection with the highly irregular 1988 sale of this Roxas Boulevard reclamation site.
Earlier, two separate plunder and graft charges were filed against the same incumbent and former PEA and MBDC executives by Crusaders against Graft and Corrupt Practices in the Philippines lead convenor Fernando Perito and by United Filipino Consumers and Commuters convenor Rodolfo Javellana Jr.
The complainants in these eight cases all pointed out that even though it happened way back in 1988, this anomalous deal is not covered by the mandatory 10-year prescription period for the filing of plunder charges against guilty parties and the 20-year prescription period covering graft complaints, because prescription must be reckoned from the date of discovery.