PCGG-controlled firm aims to raise revenue

MANILA, Philippines - An asset-rich real estate holding firm controlled by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) aims to raise P70 million just in rental income alone for 2011, PCGG chairman Andres Bautista said yesterday.

Bautista said the revenue target for the Independent Realty Corp. (IRC) would be an improvement on the P46 million generated last year, which included the sale of various assets.

Bautista said various reform measures implemented by the new set of officers of IRC named by President Aquino could be credited for the IRC’s higher income projection for this year.

“After a careful audit and assessment of the operations of the IRC Group, the new officers pursued a systematic plan of instituting reforms to ensure its long-term viability,” Bautista said.

The IRC and several other real estate holding companies, lumped together by the PCGG and dubbed the IRC Group of Companies, include some 27 corporations that were surrendered by the late Filipino-Chinese businessman and self-confessed dummy of the late deposed President Ferdinand Marcos, Jose Yao Campos, to the PCGG in 1987, as assets he held in trust for the deposed president.

The 1987 compromise agreement that paved the way for Campos to surrender the IRC Group of Companies, shares of stock in the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., and companies holding shares in other large corporations such as Philex Mining Corp. to the PCGG, enabled him to stop an effort of the Corazon Aquino administration from looking into Unilab and his real estate company Greenfield Development Corp. as possible assets of Marcos, the PCGG said.

Of the 27 firms under the IRC Group, only four have been found to be active corporations: IRC, Mid-Pasig Land Development Corp., Mapalad Realty Corp., and Performance Investment Corp.

The IRC Group’s crown jewel is the 18.48-hectare Payanig sa Pasig land and the Valle Verde enclave in Pasig City.

Bautista said the same was also the case for the other sequestered or surrendered firms under the control or supervision of PCGG.

“Building upon the reforms of the past nine months, we have also undertaken concrete actions in fulfilling the PCGG’s mandates, specifically, as regards our duty to prevent the dissipation of the assets and properties that were sequestered by or surrendered to us,” Bautista said.