By Dennis D. Estopace
Reporter
UNIVERSITY of the Philippines was not shortchanged, UP official Jaime D.L. Caro said to douse talk that the state-owned university was shortchanged in its build-operate-transfer deal with Ayala Land Inc.
“In fact, I have comparisons of rental rates and it shows that what Ayala would pay is thrice than the usual lease payments UP receives from its current locators,” Caro, assistant vice president for development of the UP System, told BusinessMirror.
Caro spoke to BusinessMirror after presenting the Science and Technology Park project in UP Diliman, Quezon City, on Wednesday’s meeting of the Alumni Association.
The deal with Ayala Land Inc., signed last month for the development of a 37-hectare university property along Commonwealth Avenue, would pour into UP coffers P4.236 billion, excluding value-added taxes, as rent.
“That’s a good deal since our independent assessor pegged the land value at just under P300 for every square meter,” Caro added.
Caro said that Ayala would pay more than P1,000 for every square meter to develop, use and run business on the property from now up to 2031.
The program director of the UP Information Technology Training Center explained that current locators like Petron Corp. and those at the university’s southern property near Ateneo de Manila University in Katipunan, are paying only P300 per sqm.
The contract between Ayala and UP was finalized 12 years after the Board of Regents approved a land-use plan designating parcels of land for business development and research and as technopark zones.
The 25-year contract signed last month allows Ayala Land to develop, manage and operate 380,630 sqm of the Commonwealth Avenue property, with all improvements automatically becoming UP properties upon expiry.
Caro said the project is in line with the university’s move to further develop the science and technology capability of Filipinos, especially UP graduate and undergraduate students and faculty members.
He added that it would also cut costs in UP’s property and maintenance as the contract brings these tasks and responsibilities on Ayala Land’s shoulders.
The deal comes at a time when the national government cut again by P4.1 billion the university’s proposed P7.8 billion this year and by P4.4 billion from the proposed P8.4 billion for 2007.
As the largest state-run university, UP has witnessed the exodus of its best and brightest faculty members either to educational institutions abroad or local universities paying higher salaries.
According to documents from the UPAA, some 4,114 members of the faculty teach an estimated 51,530 elementary, high school and college students in six campuses across the country and in its open university program. Some 891 students in degree programs are also enrolled for academic year 2005-2006.
The World Bank, in its recent report, has urged East Asian economies to address the development of a growing young population.
“The average performance of adolescents from three middle-income EAP countries (Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines) on standardized tests is well below the OECD average of 500,” the Bank said, adding that “[t]hese numbers are all the more worrisome because these assessments do not include students who have already dropped out of school, who are likely to be the poorest and worst performing students.”
The world’s largest lender has expressed such concern in view of the need of these economies of “workers with high skills and knowledge.”
“This is reflected in the increase of the returns to upper secondary and, particularly, higher education relative to primary and lower secondary education despite the increase in their relative supplies.”
Business Mirror
November 17, 2006
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