Payumo charged anew

Jimmy Mendoza and Bert Pineda illustrate strength and unity after filing a corruption case against Mr. Felicito Payumo, former Chairman of SBMA. The case stemmed from Payumo's lopsided concessions with Subic Coastal Development Corporation (SCDC).

According to the complaint filed this afternoon at the Office of the Ombudsman, on August 2002, Payumo executed an agreement with SCDC leasing 16.5 hectares of prime beachfront property for a miserable pittance of 2.75 pesos per square meter notwithstanding the fact that properties adjacent to SCDC such as Subic Aqua Sports and Pista sa Barrio Restaurant are paying PhP 146.66 & PhP 140.94 respectively.

The property was then subleased by SCDC to companies such as Moonbay Marina for PhP50.00 per sqm, Subic Park Hotel for PhP 70.00/sqm and Maxus Subic Food for PhP 85.00/sqm, a scheme, (according to Pineda) that defrauded the government of almost one million pesos monthly.

With such property located in the hearth of one of our country's summer capital; on the level of Baguio and Boracay where land is sold at tens of thousands of pesos per square meter, it is highly questionable to lease the Subic Beachfront for a measly two pesos and seventy five centavos per square meter! Mendoza alleged.

And to add insult to injury, it was leased by Payumo in pesos and not in dollars which is the stronger currency . . . and gave it up for fifty years! This act of corruption is unforgivable; we demand that the perpetrators be brought behind bars.