Monday, December 31, 2007 Mercado: Bacolor's landmark, Xevera By Ram Mercado First Person
EACH time I enter a local shopping mall, young promo girls who hand out pretty promotional brochures and flyers for scores of residential areas, inviting prospective house and lot buyers to live in those places, greet me.
Depending on where they decide to live and considering the prices affordable to them, the homemakers have a wide array of choice dwellings and locations to choose from.
From random talks with a cross-section of Angeles City residents who come from the A-B class, middle executives of locator-companies at Clark Freeport, and recent arrivals from jobs abroad, the oft-mentioned housing area is 'The Enclave".
The Enclave is a luxurious and prestige site, the most posh housing area of its kind nearest to Clark. I understand that most investors, who want their executive officers and top company officers to reside in that area, cited its accessibility, ideal location, stringent security regulations, and class amenities.
If Enclave is the high-end project for expatriate families in Angeles and the expanding development at Clark with its increasing foreign executives, at the other end of the twin project of Globe Asiatique is the rising Xevera housing area.
Located in Calibutbut (Bacolor residents call it Calibu) Xevera will be the first grand landmark in a resurgent Bacolor, now the subject recipient of P1 billion rehabilitation funds recently approved by the Lower House of Congress. Rep. Aurelio "Dong" Gonzales was delighted to know of the expansive Xevera housing project in that area. "As my dream is to realize full reconstruction and rehabilitation of the town, Xevera has come in Bacolor as a providential part of the program", he said.
Inspired by the move by the lawmaker from the 3rd district for a massive rehabilitation of the devastated town, Bacolor residents who moved out to resettlements or renting houses in many areas will soon come back to their beloved town, it was reported by Gonzales who regularly meets with barangay and municipal officials.
A uniquely designed, Spanish inspired community, the subdivision provides a luxurious ambiance to modest income groups, like starting families and new couples as well as retired spouses who want intimacy and comfort in a two-storey, two bedroom love nest.
The Korean community here, scandalized by the murder of a couple in a housing site in Porac last week, welcome the Xevera and Enclave, finding the two a safe, accessible choice, and proximate to quiet and decent neighborhood. Xevera and The Enclave attract most of the Koreans in the Metro Clark area, especially new family arrivals.
Expected to grab the finished units are residents from San Fernando south, central Angeles, and non-Pampanga resident workers inside Clark who want to have a permanent place near their places of work, members of mass media who earlier applied to avail of the housing offer said.
Bulk of the interested buyers already comes from Bacolor who are excited about a new municipality carved out from the ashes.
The man behind these twin housing projects is President and CEO Delfin Lee of Globe Asiatique, a trusted and popular name in national real estate development.
In the TV talk show "K2K", Lee urges prospective home builders to start getting their houses now, "not necessarily from Xevera or Enclave" but precisely to obviate from the inevitable and certain economic reality that prices of houses will never go down
Attractive features of Xevera include a modern town hall, a church, market, transportation terminal, a club, and Olympic-sized swimming pool, a 20-classroom school jointly operated with ABS-CBN.
Early visitors to Xevea admired the post card-cute townhouses of which some 5,000 units shall be constructed. Mayor Dungca bared that the P5,000 monthly amortization is cheaper than renting an apartment or a detached dwelling in Angeles that costs P10,000 monthly.
Lee, himself, is the best and most effective salesman of the affordable landmark project. Amiable, articulate, and candid, the suave and handsome Globe executive was strongly persuasive with his sales blitz in his TV program.
Pag-ibig Fund's North Luzon chief lawyer Vivian Flores, makes frequent and regular inspection visits to Xevera to assure strict compliance to building regulations and work stipulations. Each townhouse unit has a PAGIBIG loan cost of P750,000 payable in 30 years.
K2K emcee Dina Enage, also Lee's assistant, elicited from Atty. Flores that only legitimate couples are qualified to apply for Pag-ibig loans. Separated spouses, unless their marriage has been nullified or declared void, are welcome on a case-to-case basis.
What is truly attractive about the townhouses on sale is that Mortgage Redemption Insurance covers Pag-ibig borrowers. This means that he/she is extinguished of the loan upon death.
Lee and Flores admitted that Xevera developer (Globe Asiatique) and Pag-ibig are forged in a working and solid partnership to realize this unique housing project.
Mobile phones of TV host Angelo "Sonny" Lopez, Jr. are swamped daily with inquiries from interested buyers, most of them renting their dwelling, who asked details of the Xevera project, it was reported by the local cable TV staffers.
