Clark investor bargains with CDC amid failure to deliver P4.84-B investments

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga – If its contract with the state-owned Clark Development Corp. were to be followed, the Sacobia Hills Development Corp. (SHDC) should have been delisted as an investor at the Clark Special Economic Zone (CSEZ) after it failed to invest some P4.84 billion it had committed way back in 1997.

But after having reportedly sold securities worth P600,000 and P700,000 each to at least 1,191 buyers for its still unfinished golf and country club project here, SHDC seems to be employing every strategy to keep its head above water. This, amidst its failure to pay the state firm its lease on some 210 hectares that would amount to some P35 million by this time.

"We are looking into its claim that it cannot pursue its projects because of farmers laying claim to areas leased to it," said CDC executive vice president Jose Victor Luciano.

Adopting a policy of leniency amid economic difficulties nationwide,the CDC has given SHDC enough time to show proof of its capability to fulfill its commitment. CDC officials have declined to release more information on the case pending final results of further negotiations with the firm whose present chairman is Donald Dee, president of the Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines.

The lease agreement signed by SHDC and the CDC on Jan. 28, 1997 specified that the contract would be subject to automatic cancellation and would be of "no force and effect" should the former fail to comply with its commitments to pursue Phase I and Phase II of its many proposed projects here.

Phase I , whose target completion was specified in the contract at "not later than June 12, 1999", included an 18-hole golf and country sports and country club, 269 existing housing units for conversion into luxury villas and corporate housing, maintenance facilities, golf cart storage, and other support amenities.

Phase II, on the other hand, with a June, 2001 completion target, included another 18-hole golf course, a community and business center, theme park a five-star hotel, and recreational and commercial facilities.

The golf course was to be developed by the True North Golf and Country Club which entered into a "deed of assignment with the SHDC on Aug. 21, 1997. Century Properties, Inc. was designated as the exclusive marketing manager of the club which , in 1997, was found by the Securities and Exchange Commission to have sold to the public golf and country club shares worth P600,000 and P700,000 each.

The SEC found out that some P307 million was already collected from 1,191 buyers as payment or deposit money for the shares. The collections were deposited to the account of Century Properties with the Export and Industry Bank head office in Makati City with account No. 5101-0020-8.

With work at the golf course suspended, SHDC has failed to employ its estimated 1,000 workers for the construction phase, 1,700 regular workers during its supposed first year of operation, and 4,000 regular workers on its fifth year of operation.

"We are looking into the records of the SHBC," said Luciano who was not yet with the CDC when the lease agreement with the delinquent firm was signed in 1997.

The agreement was signed by then CDC president Romeo David and then SHDC chairperson Nora Bitong.

Luciano said, however, that SHDC was able to comply with the payment of its performance bond, although he could not immediately say whether CDC has already forfeited the bonds after the firm failed to beat its deadlines to complete Phase I and II of its proposed projects.

With the CDC offering ample room for investors in difficult financial straits, SHDC president Jaime Koa wrote the CDC on April 26 last year, asking the state firm to shoulder the cost of relocating farmers affected in areas covered by the 18-hole golf course. He said that SHDC has already spent P5,089,725 as compensation to the farmers.

Koa said that SHDC would have "advanced" a total of P6,475,725 as lease rental payments had it not spent for the farmers’ compensation.

Earlier, an audit conducted by the Securities and Exchange Commission indicated "interlocking corporate interests," noting that Dee is vice chairman of the Export and Industry Bank where the collected gold club shares were deposited while SHDC vice chairman Jose Eduardo Antonio is also the chairman/president of the Century Properties, Inc. and True North incorporator where Century Properties is also a stockholder.

It also noted that Koa is also a True North incorporator and stockholder. Other officials of SHDC were also incorporators of True North.