COCKTALES | A P14-B conundrum: Manila Bay reclamation contractor an SEC ghost

By: Victor C. Agustin
September 7, 2012 3:31 AM

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The contractor for the P14-billion reclamation project opposed by former Las Pinas Rep. Cynthia Villar and various leftwing and environmental groups has no records with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A computer check conducted Thursday revealed that Alltech Contractors Inc. had no general information sheet or any financial report with the SEC. Neither did its name appear in either reserved or registered company name file of the agency.

Alltech Contractors is supposed to reclaim 634 hectares off the coast of Paranaque, Las Pinas and Bacoor, an ambitious undertaking supported by the local governments and approved by the Public Reclamation Authority.

Alltech's office address that was cited in a website registry, 1295 G. Araneta Avenue next to the Quezon Institute/Puregold complex, turned out to be non-existent.

Two of the three listed Alltech telephone numbers have been discontinued, with the third one connected to a residence.

Despite the project's enormity, the proposed reclamation is also nowhere to be found in the PRA website.

What the agency website does mention is a 750-hectare reclamation project that the PRA "renegotiated" with Cyber Bay Corp., the listed company that has taken over the controversial Amari project after it was voided by the Supreme Court.

That project, incidentally, is also bounded by Paranaque, Las Pinas and the province of Cavite.

According to Villar, whose group on Wednesday filed a petition before the Supreme Court for a temporary environment protection order, the Alltech project is actually the renamed Amari venture.

Alltech managed to breeze through its application for environmental clearance because it claimed that the planned reclamation was simply a "continuation" of the stalled Amari reclamation contract with the PRA-predecessor Public Estates Authority, Villar said in the petition.

And speaking of Cyber Bay, its largest shareholder and chairman happens to be San Miguel Corp. and Philippine Airlines president Ramon S. Ang, who only last week told reporters that he was looking at a 2,000-hectare site to transfer the flag carrier's operations out of the congested Terminal 2.

Ang declined to disclose the putative site, but he did say the new airport would only be "15-minutes away" by elevated road from the EDSA-Ayala intersection. The speculation is that the planned airport would literally rise from the sea, on Cyber Bay's reclaimed land.

Email Vic Agustin at cocktales_tv5@yahoo.com.

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