Ortigas scraps Mathay-Paref deal

The proposed P1-billion school for boys in posh Greenmeadows subdivision has made its last gasp after its donor and developer withdrew its support for the project.

Ortigas Company Limited Partnership (OCLP), the donor of the three-hectare open space for the intended Paref-Northfield School for Boys, said that their conditions "have not been satisfactorily met." This puts an end to the controversial agreement of former Quezon City Mayor Ismael Mathay Jr. and Paref to open the said school at Greenmeadows III. The proposal was met with angry objections from its well-to-do residents.

In a letter furnished to reporters by administration Councilor Ariel Inton, OCLP Executive Vice President Rex Drilon III said that they are "regretfully constrained to withdraw its non-objection to the project."

Drilon said that their withdrawal is mainly because OCLP does not want to be caught up in any controversy or any legal liabilities the Opus Dei-inspired school is expected to generate.

This means that the Mathay-Memorandum of Agreement has lost its legal basis and that the city government can no longer use the open space for the construction of the said school.

Meanwhile, Inton said that once the MOA is implemented, the deed of donation requires the local government to revert its title over the property back to OCLP. Drilon said however, that Ortigas is still willing to "consider, in the future, any similar request for waiver from Paref, provided that the conditions imposed by OCLP are fully complied with."

Residents within the vicinity voiced out their strong objections ever since the project came up, citing major traffic jams in the area and also raised other legal and social issues against it.

Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. may now have to scrap the deal, but according to Inton, the city government is fully in support of "quality education" and is willing to help Paref-Northfield "look for a new and more suitable place for its school". – Matthew Estabillo