Benitez family vows to pay debt to STI, denies mismanaging PWU

Facade of Philippine Women’s University at Taft Avenue, Manila. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA—The embattled Benitez family said Monday it was committed to settling its obligations to the STI group while refuting the latter’s claims that the family had mismanaged the Philippine Women’s University.

In a press statement, the family criticized what it referred to as businessman Eusebio Tanco’s “propaganda campaign” to support STI’s “all-out bid” to take over PWU and its assets.

The family also dismissed allegations made by STI president Monico Jacob that it was the Benitez family-led board which had approved the commercialization of the Jose Abad Santos Memorial School (JASMS).

JASMS is the basic education arm of PWU whose campus is located on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Quezon City.

“The project that Mr. Jacob cited in his press release was for a new JASMS facility. It was hit by the Asian financial crisis in 1998. Jardine Land turned the cash advances it made for the project into a loan which the PWU could not pay because of financial difficulties,” the family said in a statement.

The Benitez family claimed that the Tanco group was “twisting facts” in an attempt to put more pressure on the family.

“It is becoming obvious that the group of Mr. Tanco is pulling all the stops in its desire to lay hands on PWU and its assets including the JASMS campuses in Quezon City and Manila to the point of twisting facts,” the statement added.

Lyca Benitez-Brown, PWU media director, also clarified that the family, together with the PWU community, had already committed to settling its obligations to STI.

“STI is the one that has shown bad faith when it filed a notice of default and unilaterally demanded payment of the entire amount within a mere seven days. It assumed PWU’s P230-million loan with Banco de Oro just three years ago and is now demanding P928 million,” Brown said.

“It was Mr. Tanco, in fact, who pushed for the commercialization of JASMS-QC. The family was never consulted, the plan was presented to us after he had finalized it with a big mall developer he was negotiating with,” she added.

The Benitez family referred to the partnership with Tanco as a “bad match.” The family said it was now seeking to settle its obligations with STI and terminate the relationship.

The family said it could not agree to Tanco’s plan to commercialize the JASMS campus in Quezon City because it would reduce the space allocated for the school, and also because the school’s stakeholders were vehemently opposed to it.

The family also scored Tanco’s plan for PWU to take out a P500-million loan from STI to finance the construction of a nine-story school building inside the campus. The statement alleged that Ayala Land Inc., the developer that Tanco was negotiating with, would build a twin-tower residential-commercial condominium and mall inside the campus.

“It is now clear that Mr. Tanco’s plans for PWU – as seen in his attempt to commercialize JASMS Quezon City – is not in sync with the vision for education that Benitez family and the entire PWU-JASMS community holds dearly. It is just unfortunate that we are now being subjected to this kind of corporate extortion,” the statement said.

“One thing is certain: we will not back down or back out of this fight,” the family added.