Margot: Lawsuit vs. FLI might scare off investors

CEBU, Philippines -  The lawsuit the city government is mulling to file against Filinvest Land Inc. may threaten the developers who are planning to invest at the South Road Properties, according to Cebu City Council Majority Floor Leader Margarita “Margot” Osmeña.

 â€œThis scares off other investors so the city should exercise prudence,” said Osmeña, wife of Mayor Michael Rama’s predecessor, former mayor Tomas Osmeña.

However, Rama said if FLI had paid their dues to the city from their joint venture project, this problem would never have ballooned. 

 â€œI wish things can go to the bottom and need not to proceed to something (filing cases), kun naa man galing utang bayran…Ngano taason pa man ang storya, magtinabangay ta kay kanang FLI kwarta man para sa development sa Cebu,” Rama said. 

“Kun tarong lang investor kun motuman ang investor di sila ma-threatened. Filinvest will just do their job and make good on what’s in the contract, then things will be better,” Rama added. 

However, he said he was proud and happy after learning the stand and action of the office of the city attorney.

Osmeña said FLI is the biggest investor in SRP and the proceeds will be used for the bulk of payables of the expenditures of the city before the year ends, such as P233.59 million for personal services and P72.12 million for maintenance and other operating expensing totaling to P962,612,003 million.

“Filinvest is our biggest source of revenues this year. The P400 million from Filinvest will be used to pay the payable we have,” Osmeña added.

She added that the amount the FLI will be paying, and other collectables like the P7 million from Bigfoot, P50 million from auctioned properties and P40 million for the Japanese retirement facility will be utilized for the cash aid of senior citizens amounting to P240 million, the P2 million burial aid and the P60.9 million for the Local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council.

On Tuesday, City Attorney Jerone Castillo said FLI has paid only P159 million out of the city’s P500 million share. He added that FLI still has obligations to the city as joint venture partners.

Castillo earlier said that if FLI honors their contractual obligation city will not be forced to file charges against them and dishonor their partnership.

However, Filinvest in a press release said they have been consistently remitting their obligations to the city.

“Filinvest asserts its remittances to the city are updated and paid in advance,” FLI land’s vice president Tristan las Marias said.

“Filinvest would like to emphasize that it has been consistently remitting the profit share of the city from the collection of sales made on the joint venture project,” Marias said, adding that they have remitted P160 million to the city and P80 million in advance payment.

“We received a request for the city to advance the minimum guarantee payment and as a good JV partner we are considering their request,” Marias said.

Marias said they started remitting the sales collection on a quarterly basis since December 2012.

Marias stressed that the minimum guarantee is not yet due based on the joint venture agreement between the city and FLI and will only be due upon the completion of the first phase of development on March next year.

“As partners we need to exercise prudence and maturity before we issue public comments and statements since such statements might scare the private sector and investors from doing business with the city,” he added.   (FREEMAN)