The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) on Tuesday filed a claim with the Register of Deeds of Pasig City seeking to reverse the transfer of a “grossly disadvantageous” sale entered into by the Arroyo administration involving a 12-hectare property along C-5 Road in May 2010.
“The transaction is evidently fraudulent and the implementing contracts grossly disadvantageous to the government,” said Gerard Mosquera, commissioner in charge of the PCGG’s legal department, in an affidavit.
The PCGG said the property, worth at least P4.3 billion, was sold for less than P1 billion in May 2010 to Consolidated Property Development Corp., a member of SM Development Corp.
Apart from filing the affidavit with the Register of Deeds, the PCGG said it would also file a motion with the Sandiganbayan to nullify the compromise agreement entered into by the PCGG’s previous set of officials on the grounds of fraud.
PCGG Chairman Andres Bautista called the deal “another midnight transaction initiated, negotiated and executed during the final eight months of the Arroyo administration.”
Bautista said that as a result of the transaction, the government stands to lose about P3.4 billion.
The PCGG said the property was originally leased by Meat Packing Corp. of the Philippines, a subsidiary of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), to the Philippine Integrated Meat Corp. (Pimeco) in 1975 under a lease-purchase agreement. The period of the lease ended in 2009, and Pimeco’s right to buy the property matured.
The government, through the PCGG, owns 30 percent of Pimeco; the remaining 70 percent of Pimeco’s capital stock was sequestered and is being claimed in an ill-gotten wealth case pending before the Sandigan.
With this, Bautista said the PCGG maintains the legal position that the government owns 100 percent of Pimeco.
“Former officials of the PCGG and the Office of the Solicitor General, in conspiracy with Peter Sabido, son of Marcos crony Roberto Sabido, executed a memorandum of agreement whereby the PCGG waived all of its rights and interests to the property for approximately P100 million [in favor of the SM Group],” the PCGG said.
“For his part, former GSIS president and general manager Winston Garcia facilitated the transfer of the property to the SM Group for P1.1 billion, P300 million of which was paid by the GSIS to the government as transfer tax.
“This arrangement left less than P900 million as net compensation, received by both the PCGG and the GSIS for the property [whose value is more than quadruple that price],” it added.
