Guv sued over 1996 ecozone property

A BUSINESSWOMAN filed on Friday complaints before the City Prosecutor’s Office (CPO) against Davao Oriental Governor Corazon Malanyaon for allegedly selling a multi-million property that has been mortgaged to a bank.

Eight years after discovering it, Regina S. Peralta filed an estafa complaint against Malanyaon.

In an interview, Lawyer Carl Jon P. Mucho, counsel for Peralta, told reporters on Friday that the case stemmed from a property in First Oriental Business and Industrial Park located in Barangay Ilang, Tibungco, Davao City, which was sold by Malanyaon, who at that time was First Oriental’s president, to Peralta sometime in 1996.

He said Malanyaon talked to Peralta and offered her a deal and there was an exchange of money.

Hence, he said Peralta, expecting that the title was hers, built a furniture plant which could employ around 500 employees in 1997.

He said when Peralta left for abroad, that was only when she learned that the property had already been mortgaged to a bank.

“Allegedly, the intent of Malanyaon was to derive abnormal profits from the project by double dealing the titles over the properties which she had sold and transferred to buyers while taking out loans thereon in the concept of owner,” a press statement read.

“This scheme, however, unraveled when Malanyaon defaulted on the mortgage payments. Consequently, after Land Bank foreclosed the property because of non-payments of the amortizations, Malanyaon’s precarious juggling act fell apart,” it added.

“This left Peralta with nothing but spurious titles over what she knew to be her own property but which is somehow currently in Land Bank’s legal possession,” the statement read.

Mucho said her client had lost around P70 million “because of the failed eco-industrial zone project”.

“It took a while before Ms. Peralta had gathered the courage to really fight back,” Mucho said in an interview.

When asked if the filing of a case was politically motivated since it is just in time with the filing of certificate of candidacy, Mucho said: “it’s just a coincidence” and all they want is just to serve justice on their part.

In a talk with Peralta before the filing, she said that she couldn’t file earlier because the filing fee was very steep. She needed several millions of pesos to do so. The filing fees were waived recently.

As of this posting Friday, efforts to reach Malanyaon proved futile. (Arianne Caryl N. Casas)