CAP's would-be savior also needs cash.

It was touted as the alternative to Metro Manila’s congestion and envisioned to be the “single largest development that addresses the economic needs and growth requirements of the country.” Recently, it was offered as a solution to the troubles besetting the cash-strapped pre-need company College Assurance Plan (CAP).

Spanning about 80,000 hectares of contiguous land—almost 20,000 hectares larger than Metro Manila’s current land area of 63,000 hectares—lawyer Romeo Roxas’ proposed Pacific Coast City is, at first glance, an impressive vision. It proposes to open up the country’s eastern seaboard and develop a new capital district within the next 20 to 30 years. The site identified for this grand endeavor is singularly owned by Green Square Properties Corp., a Roxas company.

Part of this grand plan is to develop, within the Green Square property, several component cities, among them a resort city, an industrial city, and a university city.

Roxas recently offered CAP the last component under its proposed “land against preferred shares” swap. The area offered to CAP is comparable in size to Pasig City which embraces around 3,100 hectares of land. It sounds like a good deal. But the proposal, skeptics have noted, could be just another effort to lull CAP’s worried plan holders into a false sense of security.

Some have questioned the value of the property Roxas is offering to CAP. At P6 billion for 3,000 hectares, CAP is actually paying Roxas around P200 per square meter for roughly one-ninth of total land holdings which as of 2002 were appraised at P5.2 billion.

The gamble may spell huge profits for the pre-need company if Roxas pulls it off.

But almost a decade since Roxas broached the idea to key government officials, doubts remain about the viability of his Pacific Coast City dream. Located in the middle of the Sierra Madre mountains, the proposed project has been a major concern for environmentalists who are worried about its potential impact on the area’s fragile ecology. Even Roxas’s ownership of the property has been questioned.

Of the area Roxas has chosen for his dream city, roughly 28,000 hectares were purchased by Green Circle Properties and Resources Inc.—another Roxas company—from Roberto Guaponsoy Sr. in 1995. The rest—roughly 50,000 hectares—is still part timberland and is therefore not alienable and disposable, forester Wilfredo Riñas of the environment department’s Region IV-A office told NEWSBREAK. Moreover, he said, a portion of the area is protected under Proclamation 1636, which declared it a national park and bird sanctuary. The only way the land can be reclassified and made available for titling is through an act of Congress.

The company claimed in an advertisement in major dailies that it purchased the land “through a tax sale by the municipality and the province of Quezon where we paid the total unpaid realty tax for 33 years.”

The area was actually part of what the Supreme Court has dubbed “the most fantastic land claim in the history of the Philippines.” The High Court, in its Dec. 18, 1996 ruling, nullified the Spanish title (Titulo Propriedad No. 4136) on which the claim was based, with finality.

Green Square tried to assert its right over the property by suing the municipal treasurer of General Nakar for refusing to accept its taxes. In October 2001, the Supreme Court dismissed Green Square’s complaint and upheld the nullity of the alleged title to the property.

Roxas spokesperson Arnold Querejero downplays the importance of the 50,000 hectares on the company’s plans. The Roxas company, he says, plans to prioritize the development of the titled portions of the proposed area for development. As for the rest, he says, various government commissions (now all defunct) have already proposed that these areas be opened for titling.

Granted that Roxas’s property claims to the area are in order, how the company plans to finance such a huge undertaking is a big question mark. In its latest financial statement submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Green Square has over P6 billion worth of assets—including “land held for future development”—but the company’s net earnings for 2002 amounted to only P276,010. Its sister company, Green Circle, which has total assets of P2.6 billion—including P2.2 billion investments in Green Square—posted a negative net income of P965 in 2003.

The proposed plan, Sen. Sergio Osmeña III noted, is just too far out. “They are selling this song and dance that it’s a whole new city,” he told NEWSBREAK. This is not the only grand idea that Roxas has come up with, Osmeña pointed out. Roxas also stirred up much debate in Soledad City, Monterey County, California, when he proposed to develop the place into a 5,000-acre “city of learning.”

Roxas has not included in his master plan the cost of developing his Pacific Coast Cities. NEWSBREAK asked Querejero for a ballpark figure and was told that the company would need at least P20 billion to build access roads to the area, a port in Dingalan, and the initial development of the three component cities. This is too small a budget for developing an area bigger than Metro Manila.

Roxas has tried to improve the viability of the plan by having it declared a flagship project. On Jan. 27, 2000, President Joseph Estrada obliged him by issuing Proclamation No. 233, declaring 30,000 hectares of the Roxas property a Special Economic Zone and Tourism Estate.

Despite these incentives, Roxas has yet to convince investors to support his dream city. The only possible income Roxas is getting from his land at the moment, according to Riñas, is derived from sale of wood cut from within his titled property.

How a company which needs such a huge capital infusion could possibly help another cash-strapped company like CAP is a mystery. Without the necessary investments, the Pacific Coast City could remain a pipedream. And CAP could be left holding 3,000 hectares of forest land in the middle of nowhere.

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