Village folk readily say Binays own hacienda

HOME ON THE RANGE A mansion stands before a sculptured English garden that Dr. Elenita Binay ordered built based on the design of the Kew Garden in London, according to former Makati City Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado. Vice President Jejomar Binay vehemently denies his family owns the mega-size resort property in Rosario, Batangas province. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

ROSARIO, Batangas—If you go by the municipal government records, you cannot find documents that will show Vice President Jejomar Binay has a business or real estate property in this town.

But residents in the remote village of Maligaya in Rosario quickly refer to a gated property, about 12 kilometers from the town center, as owned or used to be owned by the Binays.

A 67-year-old woman, who refused to be identified, said she worked at the Binays’ farm as an orchid cutter for 14 years until last year, when her daughter asked her to retire from work.

In all those years she worked at the farm, the woman said the Binays were always her employers. The Vice President, she said, often visited the farm.

“It was really big inside, with a private pool and a lot of greenhouses. I think they were building one more (greenhouse) by the time I left,” she said.

She said each greenhouse was twice the size of her daughter’s house, which is about 300 square meters.

There were also a lot of pig houses, “but only those housing the sows were air conditioned,” she said.

“[The Binays] used to tell us their business was not earning much that’s why they never gave us a raise,” she said.

She said she earned P4,000 a month.

Another resident, Gas Arceo, said he had entered the property a few times through friends who worked at the farm.

Frequent Binay visits

He said the Vice President frequented the farm and the last time he saw him was last month.

“He would arrive either on a helicopter or travel by land. You’d not miss him because there were a lot of escorts,” he said.

A gate, about 3 meters high, blocked the view into what seemed to be an orchard.

A peek through a crack on the gate revealed a network of concrete driveways and large mango trees.

But Roger Basa, a security guard on the property, said the land was owned by Antonio Tiu’s Sunchamp Real Estate Development Corp. and never by the Binays.

People going in and coming out of the property—one on a motorcycle, another in a van—when the Inquirer visited on Wednesday refused to talk and claimed they were not from the village.

Basa, who said he started working for Sunchamp in 1997, said the property was just about 2 hectares.

“There’s nothing inside but mango trees,” he said.

JCB Farm, the piggery owned by Binay, ceased operating in this town in 2010, municipal government records showed.

Municipal certification

The municipality of Rosario, through the office of the municipal administrator, lawyer Cipriano Asilo, issued a certification “that as per records of this office, JCB Farm, with business address at Barangay Bayawang, Rosario, Batangas, was a registered business since 1994 until 2010 and ceased/stop their business operation [in] the same year (2010).”

“This also further certifies that there is no record of JCB Farm in our current database of duly registered businesses for the year 2014,” it added.

The certification did not indicate who owned JCB Farm and municipal employees claimed they did not know who.

Asilo gave the Inquirer a copy of the certification on Wednesday when asked about the Vice President’s businesses in the town.

The copy of the certification was dated Sept. 24, issued at the height of the Senate inquiry into the allegedly overpriced Makati City Hall Building II.

The mayor of this town, Manuel Alvarez, is a member of the vice president’s United Nationalist Alliance (UNA).

JCB building

A check in the municipal assessor’s office here also showed that JCB Farm last declared real property tax in 2010.

But according to the assessor’s office computer database, the only property under the name, JCB Farm, was a building (records did not indicate the number of floors) with a floor area of 728 square meters and a market value of P1,520,064, classified for “agri-business” use.

The JCB building was located on a property owned by a certain Renato Comia from Barangay Baybayin, while the land is located in Barangay Maligaya. Maligaya, Bayawang and Baybayin are neighboring villages.

“That’s the only record we have (of JCB),” said municipal assessor Guillerma Delen.

No one in the office could say who Comia is.

The name Agrifortuna Inc., reportedly the registered name of JCB Farm in the Securities and Exchange Commission, did not come up in a quick search into the assessor’s computer database.

Originally posted at 10:16 pm | Friday, October 10, 2014

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