Anti-graft group wants SC to void deal to develop IBC property

An anti-corruption group wants the Supreme Court (SC) to declare as void the joint-venture agreement (JVA) that the government signed for the development of the state-owned Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation (IBC-13) property in Quezon City.

The Philippine Crusader for Justice (PCJ) will ask the SC to nullify the controversial agreement between IBC-13 and RII Builders Inc.-Primestate Ventures, after the Office of the Ombudsman found the contract to be disadvantageous to the government.

“This deal is grossly disadvantageous to the government,” Joe Villanueva, head of the PCJ, said in a statement.

IBC-13 and RII-Primestate signed the JVA on March 24, 2010 to develop 36,401 of the 41,401 square meter-IBC-13 property in Broadcast City, Capitol Hills, Diliman, Quezon City into a residential complex, and the remaining portion of 5,000 sq.m. for two buildings of IBC-13.

In 2013, the Ombudsman filed a criminal case in 2013 against former IBC-13 executives and Primestate for violation of Republic Act No. 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act), and Falsification of Public Document under Article 171 of the Revised Penal Code.

The anti-graft buster said the JVA caused undue injury to the government in the amount of representing the difference between the Commission on Audit (COA) valuation and the JVA valuation of the 36,401 sq.m. property, which gave unwarranted benefits to RII-Primestate.

It said that the agreement between IBC-13 and RII-Primestate was not only grossly disadvantageous but also invalid and illegal for failure to follow the guidelines and procedures in entering a JVA between the government and private entities with evident bad faith and manifest partiality in favor of RII-Primestate and to the detriment of IBC-13.

IBC-13 and Primestate executives, the Ombudsman said, approved the agreement in haste, with misrepresentations in the clauses, and over the reservations made by the Presidential Commission on Good Government, Office of the Government Corporate Counsel, and Office of the Solicitor General which noted the deficiencies in the JVA.

In its 2011 report, COA said the land contributed to the JVA was undervalued at only

per sq. m when it could have been appraised at a much higher rate of per sq. m. (Leonard D. Postrado)