Thai investors urge government to honor PEA-Amari contract

Two Thai investors said yesterday that all land reclamation and development in the country will be stifled if the Supreme Court does not reverse its July 9, 2002 decision declaring null and void the contract between the Public Estate Authority and the Amari Coastal Bay Development Corp., developer of the 750-hectare Manila bay reclamation project.

Thai investors Italian Development (BVI) Co. Ltd. (Ital-Thai) and Centasia Group Ltd., maintained that government should set an example by honoring the contract and show the international business community that the Philippines possesses a reliable system of laws.

ACCRA lawyer Francis Ed. Lim – who heads the petitioner’s legal group – said that in striking down the Amended Joint Venture Agreement dated March 30, 1999, the Supreme Court runs counter to the mandate of Article 1420 of the Civil Code and is "absolutely unwarranted under the fundamental principles of contract law.

"The AJVA is a land reclamation and development contract, that is, an infrastructure agreement. Surely, such reclamation and development service can hardly be considered ‘contrary to law’ much less ‘outside the commerce of man,’ as erroneously held by the Supreme Court," Lim pointed out.

The ACCRA Law counsel said the SC decision declaring the AJVA null and void evidently arose from its having equated the "object" of the AJVA with the reclaimed Freedom Islands and the surrounding submerged areas still to be reclaimed.

"Such theory would result in the absurd situation where any and all land reclamation contracts would be inexistent and void from the beginning. And as a result, no valid contract can be entered into by anyone for the reclamation of submerged lands, which the Philippine government is hardly in a position to do," he said.

Lim made this comment as Senate President Franklin Drilon challenged the project’s foreign investors to render an accounting on more than P9 billion worth of expenses which the Thais asked to reimburse from the government.

The project, which falls under the flagship Manila-Cavite Coastal Road and Reclamation Project (MCCRRP) or Boulevard 2000, involves developing and improving the already reclaimed 157.8 hectare Freedom Islands (reclaimed by Amari) as well as reclaiming another 500 hectares of still submerged areas adjacent to the islands.

"Worse, this sends an alarming message to the world that the Philippine government and its system of laws, including its Chief Executive, is a party whose word cannot be relied upon," Lim said.