For sale

Agrarian Reform Secretary Obet Pagdanganan is now doubling as salesman to fasttrack the sale of billions of pesos worth of sequestered assets.

Why? Because the Department of Agrarian Reform is working on a very tight budget, which was slashed from a proposed P18.4 billion to just P7.4 billion.

To cover the budget cut, President Arroyo has directed that proceeds of the sale of sequestered assets in excess of P20 million shall be funneled to DAR, specifically for land acquisition. Thus, for instance, if the sequestered shares of stocks at PNCC worth P600 million are sold, P20 million would go to the national treasury while P580 million would go to CARP.

This year, DAR is mandated to award at least 100,000 hectares but as a result of the budget cut, is operating on a P2.85-billion budget for land acquisition which is good only for 50,000 hectares.

Up for sale are the following properties: "Payanig sa Pasig in Ortigas, P13.42 billion; Piedras Petroleum Corp. (127.9 billion ) in Bataan, P428.75 million; 4.6 hectares at the Bacolod City reclamation area, P280.13 million; Mountainview Complex in Tagaytay, P200 million; Hans Menzi compound, P40 million.

Also for sale are shares of stocks in the following companies: RPN 9, P1.3 billion; IBC 13, P3.07 billion; Philippine National Construction Corp., P600 million; Eastern Telecoms, P450.8 million; Meralco, P241.5 million; Chemfields Inc., P205.11 million; Oceanic Wireless Network, P80.27 million; PLDT, P4.95 million; and A. Soriano Corp., P4.2 million.

So while PCGG is still in charge of disposing these properties, Obet is acting as part-time salesman, minus the commission of course.

No deal yet

Destiny Cable, owned by the Lim family, says it has yet to receive a proposal to acquire the company that will be beneficial to its stockholders.

One of those who are really determined to acquire Destiny Cable is SkyCable-Home Cable. But according to Destiny’s Beda Manalac, the owners have yet to get an offer that will give significant value to the stockholders.

But regardless of whether or not a deal takes place, Destiny has already earmarked P300 million for the initial upgrade of its infrastructure to position the company in data services. Destiny officials believe that data services (i.e. cable Internet) is going to grow much faster than cable television. Manalac says Destiny has the most data-ready cable infrastructure and that any upgrading will just be minor.

SkyCable’s Gabby Lopez, however, seems to be hell-bent in acquiring Destiny and says that price is something that can be worked on.

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