Thursday, 11 November 2010 13:46 Max de Leon / Reporter
THE government is now lining up several schemes to achieve its target of building 150,000 socialized housing units by 2011, including those for the relocation of squatters or informal settlers.
Vice President Jejomar Binay, who is also housing czar, said one direction they are considering is lowering the interest rates for housing loans through Pag-Ibig that would be affordable to the masses, particularly loans in the P400,000-and-below bracket.
“Now it is 6 percent [per annum] for P400,000 and below. Maybe we could reduce that for that amount to 5 percent,” he said, adding that for loans in the P300,000 level, the plan is to bring the interest rates down to 4 percent, and then 3 percent for P200,000 and below.
Also, Binay said the government will seek the help of local government units in undertaking socialized housing projects. “The LGUs can provide the lots and we will provide the financing.”
He said this would enable the offering of housing units on the P70,000 to P80,000 price levels and lead to reducing the current backlog of about 3.7 million houses.
The government will also strictly implement the law that requires developers to allocate at least 20 percent of their total investments to socialized housing and the development of socialized housing should be spread throughout the country and not just in provinces near Metro Manila, he said.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
BLISS-type housing planned in Davao slum area
Saturday, 02 October 2010 09:30 Manuel T. Cayon / Reporter
Davao City–A group of developers under the Chamber of Real Estate Builders Association (Creba) has been discussing with the city government a plan to put up several midrise and low-cost condominium buildings in a slum area in downtown both for the slum dwellers and the workers.
Carlos Vargas, president of Creba-Davao City chapter, would not divulge yet the supposed area of the BLISS-type project, but indicated that the Davao City Planning Office has already identified it.
The area would cover 40 hectares of land mostly inhabited by squatters, and Vargas said he has already started talks with the landowner. “We would not name the place yet, because we don’t want to create more squatters now in the place.”
The project would involve putting up several buildings of about four to five stories, and the number of units would depend on how much land the landowner would allow them to develop.
“This would be a green building. We would use bricks, which are resistant to heat, and we would be putting up rain catchment, where residents would be using the rain water for most of their common household water use,” he said.
The initial design would have a 24-square-meter floor area for each unit, “but as to how many units per floor would really depend on the area, and we would try to persuade the landowner to donate at least 20 percent of this area to accommodate the squatters.”
“The landowner would have all the advantages in this arrangement. Imagine donating this portion to the city and putting the squatters in a more secured housing unit than continue holding on to the land without benefiting from it,” he said.
So far, the landowner was already informed of the tender, and “he was positive,” he said. “What we would discuss again with him is how much would he donate.”
In their talks with the city government, Vargas said the city wanted an affordable rate to ensure that squatter families and ordinary workers could afford a unit. “It wanted to offer the units for rent, at about P1,000 a month.”
“We suggested to sell it, at P250,000, or about P2,500 monthly amortization,” he added.
The project would solve at least the city’s two main problems: the housing backlog and putting the squatters and the workers in an affordable housing unit that is accessible to their work, schools and shopping places, he said.
Creba offered to build the mid-rise and low cost condominium unit for the poor a week before Mayor Sara Duterte had announced that she wanted the poor residents to acquire their own houses.
“It appeared that we were then on the same plane, and we started the talks immediately. The city government reacted positively, too,” he said.
The costing was not yet discussed nor was there any agreement. “We are currently designing the project, which we would present to the city government in two weeks.” He said the cost may only be about P12,000 per square meter.
The builders would be a consortium, composed of some members of Creba, “and ideally [it should] have one developer for each condominium building so that the units could almost simultaneously be made available.”
Davao City–A group of developers under the Chamber of Real Estate Builders Association (Creba) has been discussing with the city government a plan to put up several midrise and low-cost condominium buildings in a slum area in downtown both for the slum dwellers and the workers.
Carlos Vargas, president of Creba-Davao City chapter, would not divulge yet the supposed area of the BLISS-type project, but indicated that the Davao City Planning Office has already identified it.
The area would cover 40 hectares of land mostly inhabited by squatters, and Vargas said he has already started talks with the landowner. “We would not name the place yet, because we don’t want to create more squatters now in the place.”
The project would involve putting up several buildings of about four to five stories, and the number of units would depend on how much land the landowner would allow them to develop.
“This would be a green building. We would use bricks, which are resistant to heat, and we would be putting up rain catchment, where residents would be using the rain water for most of their common household water use,” he said.
The initial design would have a 24-square-meter floor area for each unit, “but as to how many units per floor would really depend on the area, and we would try to persuade the landowner to donate at least 20 percent of this area to accommodate the squatters.”
“The landowner would have all the advantages in this arrangement. Imagine donating this portion to the city and putting the squatters in a more secured housing unit than continue holding on to the land without benefiting from it,” he said.
So far, the landowner was already informed of the tender, and “he was positive,” he said. “What we would discuss again with him is how much would he donate.”
In their talks with the city government, Vargas said the city wanted an affordable rate to ensure that squatter families and ordinary workers could afford a unit. “It wanted to offer the units for rent, at about P1,000 a month.”
“We suggested to sell it, at P250,000, or about P2,500 monthly amortization,” he added.
The project would solve at least the city’s two main problems: the housing backlog and putting the squatters and the workers in an affordable housing unit that is accessible to their work, schools and shopping places, he said.
Creba offered to build the mid-rise and low cost condominium unit for the poor a week before Mayor Sara Duterte had announced that she wanted the poor residents to acquire their own houses.
“It appeared that we were then on the same plane, and we started the talks immediately. The city government reacted positively, too,” he said.
The costing was not yet discussed nor was there any agreement. “We are currently designing the project, which we would present to the city government in two weeks.” He said the cost may only be about P12,000 per square meter.
The builders would be a consortium, composed of some members of Creba, “and ideally [it should] have one developer for each condominium building so that the units could almost simultaneously be made available.”
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Your property at risk
(The Philippine Star) Updated October 20, 2010 12:00 AM/
If you happen to live or own one of those “Old Families” type compound particularly in Metro Manila, you are well advised to check if the land you are living on is part of what was once called “Friar lands”.
If you are, better do everything in your powers to make sure that your property is safe from land grabbers as well as from possible confiscation by the state due to a “historical” technicality.
If you don’t know what “Friar lands” are, well they are part of large tracts of land that used to belong to “Friars” or the Catholic Church as part of their prize for bringing “the Cross and the Sword” to the pagan world.
Once Spain lost out to the Americans in the Philippines, many “Friar lands” were bought by the colonial government and sold to actual tenants and people residing on said lands, in order to reduce the abusive tenancy practices.
According to recent estimates there are 7,494 titled properties that originated from “Friar lands” which have been passed on from generation to generation or sold to private parties.
But due to an extended three-way legal battle and the subsequent Supreme Court decision on the case, all those titles and the properties they represent may end up going back to the government.
The troublesome case involves a 34-hectare property near the Broadcast City that has evolved into a highly priced real estate boomtown for upscale subdivisions. Fighting over the property are three claimants who have gone through various government offices and various courts all the way to the Supreme Court.
At every step and in every court, the battle was about documentation with each claimant presenting what they purported to be the genuine article. In reading details of the case, one would certainly conclude that the case involving the Manotoks, Barque and Manahans would be fantastic as a case for “Forensic law”.
One group claimed that the Republic of the Philippines issued their documents which another questioned since the Republic of the Philippines, did not exist at the time their documents were issued.
Case details even included how pages from a “Liber Defunctorum” were ripped out purportedly to erase any record of existence of one of the original land owners. In case you never studied Latin, Liber Defunctorum means a “Book of deaths”.
But the most “spectacular” part of this case was that 3 parties went to the Supreme Court praying for the court to decide who is the legal owner of the 34 hectare property. But rather than decide on the petitions, the SC effectively confiscated the property and ordered that the land be returned to the Republic of the Philippines!
From the looks of it, The Supreme Court did so because none of the three claimants had a document that was signed by the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, which had authority over the matter back then.
The question now is: how many of the 7,494 existing titles fall under the category of being unsigned by the then Secretary of the Department of Agriculture? If the Supreme Court has now opined that, this can be the basis for reverting “Friar lands” to the state, how difficult or impossible would it now be for the government to contest such estates in order to re-sell those estates?
I never took up any law subject so I won’t even opine on the legal issues of the case, but I am personally disturbed that people even thought of the decision as a Solomonic decision. Far from the fact, the court did not order a partition of the property but a confiscation of property based on a technicality.
But if we were to be technical about the matter, was it wise to revert the property back to the government since it was the government that “sold” or transferred ownership of said “Friar lands” into the hands of tenants or residents?
One would imagine that the property could have been placed under guardianship or some form of escrow until such a time when a full legal forensic study of the matter had been completed.
Now that the 34 hectares is on its way back to the Philippine government, who will then get first crack at buying or applying for ownership of the property? Will the confiscation automatically disqualify any of the claimants from “reacquiring” the said property?
Given the many legal and documentary twists and turns of the case, I have no doubt that if the NBI, the Bureau of Lands and the DOJ got into the picture, those who have been misleading or lying to the court would be found out.
I am also concerned by the thought that through the years, three petitioners have used government resources in pursuit of a claim where presumably only one party is telling the truth. So in this case, there is a possibility that at least two parties have dared to commit a blatant fraud before government agencies, the RTC, the Court of Appeals and last but not the least the Supreme Court.
Shall we now turn a blind eye to such fearless fraud and in the same breath commit the greatest injustice by not seeking out the real truth and the deserving party in all of this?
Of collateral interest would be the discoveries that can be made by a full blown investigation regarding reconstitution of titles particularly in Quezon City, cross claims and legal influence peddling by officers of the courts. Yes it is often preferable to be pragmatic than idealistic, but this is Truth and Justice we are talking about — not just land and titles.
If you happen to live or own one of those “Old Families” type compound particularly in Metro Manila, you are well advised to check if the land you are living on is part of what was once called “Friar lands”.
If you are, better do everything in your powers to make sure that your property is safe from land grabbers as well as from possible confiscation by the state due to a “historical” technicality.
If you don’t know what “Friar lands” are, well they are part of large tracts of land that used to belong to “Friars” or the Catholic Church as part of their prize for bringing “the Cross and the Sword” to the pagan world.
Once Spain lost out to the Americans in the Philippines, many “Friar lands” were bought by the colonial government and sold to actual tenants and people residing on said lands, in order to reduce the abusive tenancy practices.
According to recent estimates there are 7,494 titled properties that originated from “Friar lands” which have been passed on from generation to generation or sold to private parties.
But due to an extended three-way legal battle and the subsequent Supreme Court decision on the case, all those titles and the properties they represent may end up going back to the government.
The troublesome case involves a 34-hectare property near the Broadcast City that has evolved into a highly priced real estate boomtown for upscale subdivisions. Fighting over the property are three claimants who have gone through various government offices and various courts all the way to the Supreme Court.
At every step and in every court, the battle was about documentation with each claimant presenting what they purported to be the genuine article. In reading details of the case, one would certainly conclude that the case involving the Manotoks, Barque and Manahans would be fantastic as a case for “Forensic law”.
One group claimed that the Republic of the Philippines issued their documents which another questioned since the Republic of the Philippines, did not exist at the time their documents were issued.
Case details even included how pages from a “Liber Defunctorum” were ripped out purportedly to erase any record of existence of one of the original land owners. In case you never studied Latin, Liber Defunctorum means a “Book of deaths”.
But the most “spectacular” part of this case was that 3 parties went to the Supreme Court praying for the court to decide who is the legal owner of the 34 hectare property. But rather than decide on the petitions, the SC effectively confiscated the property and ordered that the land be returned to the Republic of the Philippines!
From the looks of it, The Supreme Court did so because none of the three claimants had a document that was signed by the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, which had authority over the matter back then.
The question now is: how many of the 7,494 existing titles fall under the category of being unsigned by the then Secretary of the Department of Agriculture? If the Supreme Court has now opined that, this can be the basis for reverting “Friar lands” to the state, how difficult or impossible would it now be for the government to contest such estates in order to re-sell those estates?
I never took up any law subject so I won’t even opine on the legal issues of the case, but I am personally disturbed that people even thought of the decision as a Solomonic decision. Far from the fact, the court did not order a partition of the property but a confiscation of property based on a technicality.
But if we were to be technical about the matter, was it wise to revert the property back to the government since it was the government that “sold” or transferred ownership of said “Friar lands” into the hands of tenants or residents?
One would imagine that the property could have been placed under guardianship or some form of escrow until such a time when a full legal forensic study of the matter had been completed.
Now that the 34 hectares is on its way back to the Philippine government, who will then get first crack at buying or applying for ownership of the property? Will the confiscation automatically disqualify any of the claimants from “reacquiring” the said property?
Given the many legal and documentary twists and turns of the case, I have no doubt that if the NBI, the Bureau of Lands and the DOJ got into the picture, those who have been misleading or lying to the court would be found out.
I am also concerned by the thought that through the years, three petitioners have used government resources in pursuit of a claim where presumably only one party is telling the truth. So in this case, there is a possibility that at least two parties have dared to commit a blatant fraud before government agencies, the RTC, the Court of Appeals and last but not the least the Supreme Court.
Shall we now turn a blind eye to such fearless fraud and in the same breath commit the greatest injustice by not seeking out the real truth and the deserving party in all of this?
Of collateral interest would be the discoveries that can be made by a full blown investigation regarding reconstitution of titles particularly in Quezon City, cross claims and legal influence peddling by officers of the courts. Yes it is often preferable to be pragmatic than idealistic, but this is Truth and Justice we are talking about — not just land and titles.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
SM Prime finishing plans for third Cebu mall, eyeing fourth
CEBU CITY -- SM Prime Holdings, Inc. is accelerating its expansion in Cebu with the construction of a second mall while finalizing plans for a third and scouting for properties for a fourth mall.
SY
SM Prime President Hans T. Sy said “expansion in Cebu is long overdue” as he bared architectural perspectives of the second mall, to be called SM City Consolacion Cebu, at the sidelines of the “Gear and Glam” event here. Mr. Sy said initial investment in the Consolacion mall would be between P750 million and P800 million.
Construction will start before the end of the year, with the mall expected to be completed by the last quarter of 2011.“This signifies our confidence in Cebu. My only regret is we should have done this much earlier,” Mr. Sy said.
The first SM mall here, SM City Cebu, opened almost 17 years ago although an annex was built in 2007. The four-level SM Cebu is currently the fourth-largest SM mall, with an area for lease of nearly 130,000 square meters (sq. m.).
The two-storey Consolacion mall will be an upscale mall with a gross space for lease of about 40,000 sq. m. and gross floor area of about 57,000 sq. m.A long-term lease contract for the 47-hectare project site was signed between SM Prime and lot owner Everjust Realty Development Corp. on Friday.“This will be part of our new design -- new image -- for our malls. It’s going to be upscale,”
Mr. Sy added.The company is also finalizing the design for its third mall that will rise on the 300-hectare South Road Properties (SRP), touted as the new growth center in Cebu. Mr. Sy said he would unveil next month the details of the mall as well as the master development plan for the company’s 30-hectare property at the SRP, which was acquired in January this year from the Cebu city government for P2.7 billion.
In January, he said the company would spend around P20 billion to put up a mall, a couple of condominium buildings, and at least one hotel at the SRP site.
The SRP mall will be bigger than SM Cebu but smaller than the Mall of Asia, currently SM’s biggest.
The company is also looking for a property on which to build its fourth mall in Cebu. One of the prerequisites is that it has to be located within a five-kilometer radius from SM Cebu, Mr. Sy said.
SM Cebu is located at the Cebu north reclamation area, near the port complex and the Mandaue reclamation area.
Meanwhile, an SM Hypermart is expected to open next year as the anchor store of J Mall, a three-hectare shopping center being developed by the Uy family, which also owns fruit processor and exporter Profood International Corp., in Mandaue.SM also operates malls in Iloilo and Bacolod cities.
Nationwide, the company is expected to have 40 malls with a total gross floor area of 4.8 million sq. m. by the end of this year.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Tax on idle land readied
Tuesday, 05 October 2010 00:00
[ manilatimes.net ]
BY JAMES KONSTANTIN GALVEZ REPORTER
THE Aquino administration plans to impose a tax on all idle agricultural properties in a bid to shore up its revenues amid a record budget deficit this year. On the sidelines of the launch of the government’s Food Supply Chain Program, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said the idle land tax is mandated in the Local Government Code (LGC) and Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA), enabling local government units to compel landowners to put their agricultural land to productive use.
The Finance chief said making productive use of idle land would help augment the country’s food supply.
The LGC considers idle land tax as a revenue-raising measure while the AFMA treats it as a form of a penalty for agricultural inactivity.
Under both laws, the municipal treasurer should collect the idle land tax.
The municipality however does not retain the proceeds as these accrue to the general fund of the province as per the LGC mandate, and to the national treasury in the case of AFMA.
Purisima said the idle land tax can augment local government revenues, adding that the tax rate could go as high as 5 percent.
With more local revenues at their disposal, local governments may reduce their dependence on internal revenue allotments, he said.
“It will serve as a means to encourage optimum use of agricultural land,” he also said.
Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said the agency would also push for the idle land taxation to address the 2013 rice self-sufficiency target of the country.
“We have to increase production, and we can do this by forcing these landowners to use these agricultural lands in agriculture purposes,” Alcala said.
He, however, admitted that the legal definition of “idle land” is vague and as a result, the taxes were not collected in the past.
With its top revenue agencies missing their monthly goals, the government has been looking for ways to keep its budget deficit from exceeding the P325-billion ceiling.
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