BY MIKE ORTEGA LIGALIG

Tenants start fleeing; manager resigns

For its failure to pay P10 million worth of back taxes (called lessor's fee) to the City Government, the Tagbilaran City Square is facing closure, forcing tenants to contemplate on closing shops as their Mayor's Permits are yet to be released by City Hall. Others were reported to have started packing up. With the closure fate looming in the horizon, City Square mall manager Alfred Delmo has finally quit his job after his office was flooded with waves of anger and disgust from tenants who have called for transparency in the mall's management. City Hall, for its part, cannot issue the Mayor's Permit to the tenants since TBC Realty and Development Corporation, which manages City Square, and has a joint-venture agreement with the City Government, has not settled its multi-million peso obligation with the officialdom.

“Since last year we have been demanding the management of City Square to pay the lessor's fee but they continue to ignore our demands,” said City Administrator Edi Borja during an exclusive interview with the Bohol Sunday Post, “so we have no other option but to close City Square, in violation of the joint-venture agreement.” The P10 million worth of back taxes covers four years of unpaid business tax and real property tax for the building alone. “The amount of unpaid taxes could go up after we finish assessing and computing the unpaid taxes for the land, which is owned by the City Government,” Borja said. Before the news of City Square's looming closure broke out, City Square tenants have been nursing wounds of frustration with the management for the latter's negligence to facilitate the release of the Mayor's Permit.

As the frustration deepens, some tenants have become casualties to TBC's mismanagement. A pizza outlet, Sofia, is reportedly leaving its P50,000-a-month rented space after it failed to get the Mayor's Permit, a major requirement for a financial transaction the pizza outlet has entered with a bank. A hardware store, Hardware Exchange, which is paying rentals at P300,000 per month, will close operations on April 15, or this Tuesday. According to a Hardware Exchange staff who requested anonymity, the store has been requesting for the Mayor's Permit since the start of the year but it failed to get one. “We paid P200,000 for last year's Mayor's Permit fee and another P69,000 for the first quarter of this year,” the staff said in Bisaya, “but we still do not have the Mayor's Permit.” “We are afraid that if we continue our operations we might be questioned by a government inspection team,” the staff said.

Nila Ceros, staff of Vintage Optical Express, revealed to the Bohol Sunday Post that they too don't have the Mayor's Permit. To show its good will, Vintage Optical has paid the said permit for the four quarters of the year. It has also paid taxes with the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Ceros said they will just wait until the management settles its obligation with City Hall, but she said she feared their operation might be hurt by the brewing issue. “Kung magsira ang City Square, wala na miy mahimo. Mangita nalang mi ug laing pwesto,” Ceros said. Another tenant at City Square who asked not to be named told the Post yesterday that he is already worried of the future of his business. “Nagtarong man mi ug bayad sa among rent ug nagbayad pud mi ug Mayor's Permit, pero ang problema naa sa management kay naa silay tulubagon sa City Hall,” the tenant said. He added: “Napagan lang gyud mi ani sa binuhatan sa City Square management. Wala gyud miy sayop ani.” As the innocent tenants are already caught in the crossfire, city administrator Borja said he empathized with the business owners, but “the City Government has to enforce the law.” “Luoy kaayo ning mga tenants kay mahal kaayo ang abang nga ilang gibayran sa City Square pero ang management sa City Square walay bayad-bayad sa City Government,” Borja pointed out.

Borja said the administration of City Mayor Baba Yap is bent on cleaning up the mess left by the previous administration. “We have uncovered questionable financial transactions in the past, and the discovery of back taxes is the initial result of our investigation into the finances of City Square,” Borja said. Meanwhile, a staff at TBC office has confirmed to the Post that Delmo had indeed left his job. The staff said Delmo did not tender a written letter of resignation, and that the mall manager did not tell anyone in the office the true reason why he quit his lucrative job. But for Borja, he welcomed the news on Delmo's resignation. “It is good for City Square that he (Delmo) has resigned,” Borja said. Another TBC Realty staff told the Post that they were aware of the mounting discontent of the tenants. “Dili lang mi mo-comment, Sir, kay ni-resign na si Delmo. Wala diri ang mga stockholders nga maoy makatubag sa imong mga pangutana,” the staff, when thrown with a series of questions, has told this writer. Earlier, City Councilor Alexander Lim, chair of the City Council's committee on public accountability, had submitted to the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) a comprehensive report on the alleged anomaly and financial scandal at City Square. In his report, Lim disclosed that City Square had failed to pay “the agreed yearly rental for 2009 in the amount of P5-million or 20% of the Gross Revenue on said year, whichever is higher, pursuant to the terms and conditions of the Rehabilitate-Operate-Transfer (R.O.T) Agreement.”