Saturday, September 27, 2008 Editorials: ‘Excitement’ over Filinvest bid
ITS good that a real unsolicited proposal involving 50 hectares of land at the South Road Properties (SRP), with an identified investor to boot, has been presented to jubilant Cebu City Hall officials and jubilantly announced to the public as well.
The Filinvest Land Inc. bid is obviously the best thing that happened to Mayor Tomas Osmeña and the Cebu Investments and Promotion Center (CIPC) in a long while.
The mayor and CIPC have for years been claiming that this investor and that was interested in buying SRP lots that their announcements eventually sounded like the cries of “Wolf!” by a boy in that fairy tale of old: nobody believed them anymore.
Placed on the defensive by critics and the political opposition in the city, the mayor needed something to prop up the sagging belief in the SRP’s viability---and fast.
That the SRP would eventually earn is a no-brainer for most people, of course, but with the financial burden put to bear on the City Government by loan payments affecting the delivery of basic services, the public was getting impatient.
Enter Filinvest.
Just the first step
It would be wrong, however, to be overly ecstatic because this is but a proposal and all the figures mentioned, especially the P2 billion the city will supposedly earn from outright purchase by Filinvest of 10 hectares of SRP land, are still in the realm of talk.
The bid is still the first step in a long process, thus the excitement should be tempered with objectivity and care in analyzing the claims of government officials.
The reality is that proposals are sometimes not realized, and the Filinvest bid is not exempt from such uncertainty, positive statements of city officials notwithstanding.
Scrutinizing the deal
And since Osmeña has vowed to make this transaction as transparent as possible, it would be good for city residents, who have the biggest stake in the future of the SRP, to do their share by subjecting the deal to closer scrutiny.
Government transactions that involve billions of pesos always draw in the corrupt who may want to cash in from the usual under-the-table deals that could be worth millions of pesos even for but a small percentage of the amount of the lot purchase.
