CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The reported sale of the Paskuhan Village here has unleashed a mystery. How could the 9.3 prime real estate be titled to a government tourism agency, headed by Sen. Lito Lapid’s son,contrary to a reported deed of donation that barred this?
Jethro Lozada, member of the special bids and awards committee of the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA), confirmed his agency is selling the property with a minimum bid of P831 million and that only one firm had qualified for the bidding.
“We cannot announce the winner until the TIEZA board has approved, then we will award the project to the winner,” he noted, amid reports that a well-known firm got it at the bid of P939 million. TIEZA was identified as the seller of the property.
Punto broke the story last Friday with its banner headline “SM buys Paskuhan” identifying SM Development Corp. as the reported winning bidder. The mystery of the land title came amid “common knowledge” among Kapampangans that the 9.3-hectare land was covered by a deed of donation from the late businessman Jess Lazatin.
But the condition was that the property be used only for cultural purposes, specifically, for the Paskuhan theme park which was inaugurated by the late Pres. Corazon Aquino on Dec. 11, 1990. Otherwise, the property would be reverted to the ownership of Lazatin.
Lozada, said, however, that TIEZA was aware only of a land title on the property naming PTA as its owner. He said he did not know how the title came about, but that the title was the basis for bidding out Paskuhan as part of his agency’s privatizationmoves.
TIEZA is headed by Sen. Lapid’s eldest son Mark Lapid who was Pampanga governor from 2004 to 2007. Former Pres. Arroyo appointed the younger Lapid as head of the PTA in 2008.
When PTA was reorganized and became TIEZA in 2009, Mark was retained as the agency’s head. Pres. Aquino retained him. For his part, Pampanga 1st District Rep. Joseller “Yeng” Guiao said he learned about the sale of Paskuhan “only when I was asked by the Paskuhan administrator to retrieve my dad’s bust at the main hall of the park.”
His father, the late Pampanga Gov. Bren Z. Guiao, was known as thefounder of the park. The theme park was designed to put Pampanga in the international tourism landmark where Christmas could be commemorated daily in this city famous for its giant Christmas lantern festival.
Guiao said he would look into the case of the “missing” deed of donation and the emergency of the mysterious land title. It is known that before he passed on in 2007, Lazatin had entrusted to his lawyer all legal concerns over his properties.
It was reportedly the same lawyer, now in the US, who had worked for the PTA for the title covering Paskuhan Village. Heirs of Lazatin were reported to have said they were not aware of the transactions over the Paskuhan land.
Guiao, however, noted that the Paskuhan property “could fetch much higher price in the future, considering its location along the North Luzon Expressway and proximity to Clark Freeport where yet another new P1.2-billion passenger terminal is to rise.”
The sale of Paskuhan here was reported to be part of the TIEZA’s Asset Privatization Program upon the behest of its board headed by Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez.
