PCGG to order delinquent Payanig tenants to pay up

Several tenants of the 18.9-hectare “Payanig sa Pasig” property have not been paying rent, the Presidential Commission on Good Government said yesterday.

Ricardo Abcede, PCGG commissioner for asset management and disposal, said four lessees have failed to pay rent to the PCGG-controlled Mid-Pasig Land Development Corp. (MPLDC).

Abcede said the PCGG will take drastic action against tenants doing business on the property without paying anything to the government.

“The PCGG can’t allow these tenants to continue to deprive the government of income,” he said. “I’m sending this message to all the delinquent tenants: shape up or ship out.”

Gold Park, headed by Emmanuel Zapanta, has failed to pay rent for the past eight years, according to the PCGG. Gold Park occupies about three hectares of the property, specifically at the corner of Meralco and Julia Vargas Avenues.

The PCGG said Westpoint Industrial Sales, which put up the sprawling Ortigas Home Depot complex on the Julia Vargas side, owes the MPLDC at least P30 million in rent.

Pasig Printing Corp., said to be controlled by former Ilocos Sur governor and recently appointed deputy national security adviser Luis “Chavit” Singson, has also not been remitting millions in pesos of rent it was collecting from another home furniture warehouse complex, MC Home Depot at the Ortigas Avenue, according to the PCGG.

Pasig Printing also holds the lease on a 5,000-square meter portion of the property, where it built the Metrowalk Commercial Complex, the PCGG said.

Another delinquent tenant, the PCGG said, is businessman George Umale, owner of the Automoville used car dealership complex at the Ortigas Avenue side. The Automoville complex is said to occupy five hectares.

It was learned that in an arrangement with MPLDC, Pasig Printing has assumed the lease on the land occupied by MC Home Depot in 2003 wherein it entailed MC Home Depot to pay rent to Pasig Printing instead of MPLDC.

The property became known as “Payanig sa Pasig” because it was the site of a carnival of that name in the late 1980’s and early 1990s.

The vast property came into the PCGG’s possession in 1987 after businessman Jose Yao Campos turned over the MPLDC, along with other companies, in a compromise agreement.

Campos told the PCGG that he held the companies in trust for the late President Ferdinand Marcos.