COA questions Tacloban property deal

MANILA, Philippines—Robinsons Land Corp.’s acquisition of Tacloban City’s 2.4-hectare bus terminal and public market complex for P316.8 million in 2012—a year before the Eastern Visayas trading hub was virtually washed by Super Typhoon Yolanda—has come under a cloud after the Commission on Audit (COA) revealed the property was sold without its mandatory approval and below the floor price.

In its annual audit report on Tacloban City released last week, the COA said the Tacloban City government led by Mayor Alfred Romualdez should have obtained its consent prior to bidding out the property and demolishing the existing structures under Section 380 of the Local Government Code and the COA’s 2009 rules and regulations.

“Management’s failure to secure approval of the sale of these properties from the COA may cast doubt as to whether the sale of the real properties owned by the city is advantageous to the government and may affect the validity, propriety and legality of the resulting contract,” the COA said.

The COA also questioned why the property—the Tacloban Market, Bus Terminal and Shopping complex at Barangay (village) Abucay, Tacloban City—was sold as “ground zero” or without any improvements. There were some existing structures on the property and this should have netted a higher price for the local government, the COA said.

The COA said the structures on the property acquired by Robinsons Land included two buildings for wet and dry markets, a one-story commercial building and another commercial building with 14 slots. The COA noted the public market was acquired by Tacloban City with a P270-million loan from the Land Bank of the Philippines in 2005.

“Demolition of the buildings and structures started in December 2012 (or two months after the bidding) and was completed during the early part of February even without the approval of the COA,” the state auditors said.

The Tacloban City legal office, in its reply to the COA, described the buildings on the property as “condemned structures,” which were part of the purchase price.

The legal office also said that while there was no need for the COA to conduct an inspection of the property, the audit agency was invited to inspect the property prior to its demolition, for transparency.

The COA, however, insisted the sale of the properties was covered by its mandatory approval, “without any distinction as whether the real property or its improvement is usable or not.”

Robinsons Land declined to comment. The property developer controlled by billionaire John Gokongwei and his family has a shopping mall in the city, which was looted during last year’s disaster.

In August 2012, the Tacloban local executive finance committee approved the auction of 68 properties, the biggest of which was the public market property, and pegged the bid price at a minimum of P12,000 per square meter for lots with no structures and P15,000 per square meter for lots with structures.

During the October 2012 bidding, only two lots were successfully auctioned off—a 440-square meter lot that went to Robert Yu Gosyco with a bid of P5.28 million, or P12,000 per square meter, and the 24,353-square-meter property that went to Robinsons Land with a bid of P316.8 million, or P13,008 per square meter. The only other bidder, Mono Realty Inc., offered P316.589 million).