NHA has right to sell Kidney Institute property, says lawyer

A lawyer speaking for the National Housing Authority on Thursday insisted that the agency was well within its right to sell two parcels of land occupied by the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) in Quezon City, but clarified that the P783-million deal with the buyer, SM Development Corp., was “not yet consummated.”

A day after NKTI management aired its objections to the sale, lawyer Sinforoso Pagunsan, chief of staff of NHA General Manager Chito Cruz, said the agency would hold off the issuance of the Notice of Award to SMDC to give time for a possible solution to the land dispute offered by the Department of Finance.

He said a DOF representative, at the request of the NKTI, had discussed with NHA the possibility of finding sources of funding to pay off the institute’s obligations to the housing agency regarding the property.

“We have to wait for the DOF solution before we issue the Notice of Award,” Pagunsan said in an Inquirer interview, adding that the sale to the real estate giant was “not yet considered consummated until the notice is issued.”

The lawyer also disclosed that SMDC had already made a 50-percent downpayment deposited in a bank but that the NHA “can’t touch that yet” until the contract is awarded.

Still, Pagunsan maintained that the NHA was the legal owner of the two lots in question— one covering 8,402 square meters and the other, 7,932 square meters—which currently form part of the NKTI compound on East Avenue and Elliptical Road.

He said the NHA was entitled to receive compensation for the land from NKTI, which had been negotiating with the former for the last 28 years to get the title for the entire lot covering 58,599 square meters.

In an interview on Tuesday, NKTI Deputy Director Jose Dante Dator expressed opposition to the sale on behalf of the hospital management, calling it “illegal” and a loss of much space that could “choke” hospital operations

As to the long-drawn negotiations with the NHA, Dator said NKTI still lacked the money to purchase the land but that it could pay in the form of medical services for the NHA’s workforce.

But Pagunsan said the NHA was seeking compensation for the property in order to pay off its own obligations to agencies like Pag-Ibig Fund or the Home Development Mutual Fund, and the National Home Mortgage Finance Corp.

NHA’s debts to Pag-Ibig alone already amounted to P840 million with monthly interest at P1.5 million, he said.

NKTI earlier cited Presidential Proclamation No. 2381 issued by then President Ferdinand Marcos in 1984 excluding the property as a national government center site and reserving private rights to the NKTI as a usufructuary or one who has the right of enjoying anything in which he has no property.

But Pagunsan said agencies like the Office of the Ombudsman and the Philippine Science High School, whose lots were covered by similar decrees, had fully compensated NHA for the property.

Told about NKTI’s argument that it would lose its parking space for doctors and patients, the lawyer said the NHA had its own troubles paying its debts. “Every government agency has the right to protect its interests,” he said.