Yolanda

It is now exactly a year after that horrific calamity that was Yolanda.

The Catholic bishops have called for prayers on this day each year so that we continue to remember the great human toll the mighty typhoon took — and the great misery aggravated by incompetent government response to what happened.

Even as the national government warned communities in the path of the storm about the great dangers posed by this freak of nature, little was actually done to mitigate the calamity. There were no ships filled with relief goods readied in safe ports before the storm struck. There was no deployment of troops to quickly restore the vital ro-ro ports through which rescue and relief would pass. Recall that the US military was first on the scene in any meaningful way after the storm passed.

What could be more telling of the state of government readiness than the clumsy duo of Interior Secretary Mar Roxas and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin. They were deployed to Tacloban a day before the storm hit, but they did not even carry satellite phones with them. Those tasked with coordinating the emergency response did not have the means to communicate with anybody beyond shouting distance.

Roxas and Gazmin were cut off like everybody else in the midst of the calamity.  When he finally recovered his footing, Roxas emerged from the debris to set the tone for the national government in the aftermath: blame the local governments for failing to save their constituents.

In the 12 months that followed, national government repeated this theme: it was the local authorities that failed. Meanwhile, on the ground, Yolanda survivors demanded the resignation of President Aquino for his lack of concern for the devastated communities.

The master plan for rehabilitating the Yolanda-damaged areas was signed by Aquino literally days before the anniversary of the calamity. Communities still complain, a year after, that government relief has not reached them. Quite morbidly, firemen still find corpses in the debris as late as last week.

Rescind

A terse half-page ad appeared on this paper (and presumably in several others) last Thursday. The ad was placed by Uniwide Sales Realty & Resources Corporation and addressed to the Public Estates Authority (PEA).

The ad simply read: Please take back 41 hectares at Roxas Boulevard, Paranaque worth 41 billion pesos from Manila Bay Development Corporation which paid 420 million only to the Filipino people.

For those old enough to remember, Uniwide used to be the country’s largest retail company. Before the age of humungous malls and convenience store chains, Uniwide maintained large warehouses supplying grocery stores and several large department stores.

Things started going bad for Uniwide when it agreed to lease reclaimed land from Manila Bay Development Corporation (MBDC) to build what now stands as noting more than the ghost of a mall: the Coastal Mall that is now used as a bus terminal.

MBDC promised Uniwide a commercial complex around the Coastal Mall area comparable in scale to the Greenhills shopping area. That never happened. Because it did not happen, Coastal Mall, standing alone in the middle of raw land, could not possibly be sustainable.

To make matters worse, MBDC did not inform Uniwide about the projected Macapagal Boulevard. The new road cut Uniwide’s leaded area in half, making commercial development untenable.

Then the 1997 Asian financial crisis hit indebted Filipino firms like a super typhoon. With locators and investors in the Coastal Mall development backing out, Uniwide defaulted on its debt and went into restructuring program with its creditors.

If that was not bad enough, MBDC tried to grab back the property from Uniwide when property prices improved. Both corporations were locked in litigation for years, with Uniwide alleging bad faith on the part of MBDC.

Meanwhile, the market value of the undeveloped MBDC property kept rising, especially with the development of the Blue Wave district and the SM complex nearby. The establishment of large casinos in the area, the proposal to reclaim land on the Manila side of the bay, and the construction of a tollway linking this tourism area to the airport will boost property prices even further.

MBDC was sitting on a veritable gold mine. By just doing nothing but sit on the property, MBDC stands to gain billions in land revaluation.

There is a hitch to this, however. When MBDC acquired the property at concessional rates from the PEA in 1988, it was on the condition the area will be developed within five years. That condition is stipulated in the Deed of Sale.

That is a significant conditionality. Early development of the MBDC property would have improved the prices for adjacent PEA holdings. That would have meant better revenue for our cash-strapped government.

MBDC obviously failed to comply with that conditionality. To this day, a quarter of a century later, the MBDC area is still largely inhabited by cogon grass. Only Jimmy Gow’s sad Coastal Mall stands in the area.

Meanwhile, the MBDC property, acquired for only P420 million because of the conditionality of early development, is now worth well over P41 billion. There must be something the public lost because of this.

Uniwide is now taking the case to court, asking the PEA to rescind the deed of sale principally because the conditionality of early development was never complied with. There must be some injustice in the MBDC’s conduct in this case.

If the Calax will be rebid because government stands to lose P9 billion in potential revenue because of a technical ruling, there ought to be reason to take a second hard look at the MBDC property. Here government stands to gain well  over P40 billion if the sale in invalidated for non-compliance with the stated conditions.