{"id":28392,"date":"2014-10-10T02:03:24","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T18:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=28392"},"modified":"2014-10-10T02:03:24","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T18:03:24","slug":"binay-camp-on-property-expose-baseless-copycat-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/10\/10\/binay-camp-on-property-expose-baseless-copycat-allegations\/","title":{"rendered":"Binay camp on property expos\u00e9: baseless, copycat allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jejomar<\/a><\/p>\n

MANILA, Philippines\u2013The controversies just keep coming, it seems. On Wednesday, Vice President Jejomar Binay\u2019s group brushed off the allegations made by former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado that the VP owns a 350-hectare farm in the province of Batangas province, dismissing these fresh accusations as baseless and an \u201camateurish attempt\u201d at copycatting.<\/p>\n

The Binay camp\u2019s version of the story is that the property in the township of Rosario is not owned by the Vice President, as claimed by Mercado, but that he merely rented 9 hectares of the said parcel of land for his piggery and his wife ex-Makati Mayor Elenita\u2019s flower farm.<\/p>\n

Atty. Martin Subido, Binay\u2019s legal counsel, clarified that the farm property is not 350 hectares but 145 hectares, and that the Binay\u2019s started leasing the 9 hectares in 1994.<\/p>\n

Subido detailed that of the 9-hectare property, Binay\u2019s piggery occupied some 3 hectares. The flower farm of Mrs. Binay, meanwhile, covers 1 or 2 hectares. There is also a detached office building for the flower farm, while the remainder is open space.<\/p>\n

The lawyer further stated that Binay sold his piggery to Agrifortuna Inc. – owned by Laureano Gregorio, in 2010 – and that what now remains under their lease is the land occupied by Mrs. Binay\u2019s flower farm.<\/p>\n

Binay and his wife were once incorporators of Agrifortuna, but sold their shares to Gregorio in 1995, making Gregorio the 97-percent majority owner of the company, Subido added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe house, swimming pool and garden mentioned in reports are not owned by the Vice President. They are owned by Laureano Gregorio,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It was also pointed out by Subido that Sunchamp Real Estate Development Corp., operator of Sunchamp Agri-Tourism Park, is the current lessor of the property owned by Gregorio. Sunchamp\u2019s ownership of all the property rights of Gregorio was properly disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange and the investing public in October 2013 and July 2014, Subido said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt present Sunchamp Real Estate Development Corp., is the absolute owner of the improvements and facilities mentioned in [Wednesday\u2019s hearing]. In fact, Sunchamp has likewise introduced new improvements such as an asparagus farm, greenhouses for high-value crops, hotel, all in line with its vision to create an agri-tourism park,\u201d Subido stated.<\/p>\n

Binay\u2019s political spokesman, Cavite Gov. Jonvic Remulla spoke out against Mercado for what he said was an \u201camateurish attempt\u201d by the latter to copycat the recent expos\u00e9 on the property of Philippine National Police chief Director General Alan Purisima.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe detractors showed an aerial video and photos of the property, an amateurish attempt to do a repeat of the Purisima expos\u00e9. Any doubt that the Senate probe was after legislation on the Makati City Hall Building II has been erased by today\u2019s hearing,\u201d Remulla said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, businessman Antonio Tiu, owner of Sunchamp, categorically denied that he is acting as a \u201cfront\u201d or \u201cdummy\u201dfor Binay, calling these allegations \u201cbaseless.\u201d He added that he would willingly cut short his business trip to Spain in order to face the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee to clarify the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnbelievable that I have to be dragged into the political circus. Everything I own through Greenergy and Sunchamp is aboveboard and disclosed to the public. I will cut short my business trip to face these baseless allegations,\u201d Tiu said.<\/p>\n

Binay was interviewed by reporters while he was in General Santos City. He refused to answer questions about the allegations, and simply said: \u201cLet\u2019s just see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Batangas farm property allegedly owned by the\u00a0 Binays. (Screenshot from Mercado’s presentation)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA, Philippines\u2013The controversies just keep coming, it seems. On Wednesday, Vice President Jejomar Binay\u2019s group brushed off the allegations made …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":26563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,95],"tags":[8159,8160,8157,8158,4608],"class_list":["post-28392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news-ph","tag-batangas-property","tag-ernesto-mercado","tag-sunchamp","tag-tiu","tag-vp-binay","mauthors-angie-duarte","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}