Can’t please everyone

IT TOOK them two years to follow the legal process to the letter. But the courts have finally favored the SM group, allowing it to expand its Baguio mall and, in the process, displace 60 trees on the sprawling property of the retail giant.

Of course, critics of the policy won’t easily be swayed—the court’s decision notwithstanding. So SM has put its best foot forward to win over the residents of the chilly mountaintop city who are its main stakeholders.

Note that, from the inventory conducted by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, SM hosts a variety of trees on its property. There are presently 20 varieties represented in the 701 grown trees on the property. So the affected trees are really a small fraction of what’s planted to the property.

With over 30 hectares of property, SM has much room to develop commercial areas and even plant more trees.

The expansion of the commercial area, of course will provide up to 1,000 additional jobs for Baguio residents, while another 1,000 jobs may be created during the construction phase.

SM’s tax contribution to the local government of Baguio is also expected to rise. Based on the records of the city government, SM City Baguio currently contributes 13 percent of the total income of the local government. This will rise to as much as 18 percent which will, in turn, provide additional fund for the community and other public projects.

The mall will have almost 1,000 underground parking spaces, and a reservoir of 6.9 million liters of water, which will alleviate the drainage problem in the area caused by heavy rains.

But based on long experience, the SM people already know that, no matter what they do, they’ll never be able to please their toughest critics (many of whom are non-Baguio residents). So the conglomerate will just work along what the court decision permits. Daxim L. Lucas

Erosion alert

STILL on the SM group, earth-balling and tree-cutting activities at the SM Baguio mall have to be undertaken because of the high risk of erosion in the area, the company said.

Environmental regulators and the local government unit have already sanctioned these activities regardless of the group’s plan to expand the mall.

The SM group executed the cutting of trees and earth-balling as soon as it got the courts’ favorable decision.

With the mall perched on a hilltop, SM believes that it has to take prompt action to stabilize the slopes. What makes it even more imperative is that there’s a school at the foot of the hill, which may be easily buried in a landslide, an industry source said.

“We noticed there were signs of soil erosion, that’s why we decided to put up a permanent structural defense,” SM Supermalls president Annie Garcia said yesterday. “A retaining wall was the solution. We need to excavate the soil to put up the retaining wall. Since we have to excavate, some trees will be affected,” Garcia said. Doris C. Dumlao

Binalot in the Gulf

EIGHTEEN years after setting up Binalot, entrepreneur Rommel Juan is ready to bring his proprietary Filipino restaurant chain to the global market. And like the early days of the offshore expansion of Jollibee Food Corp., Juan’s Binalot plans to build up a critical mass with the help of the overseas Filipino community.

The first overseas market on Juan’s list is the United Arab Emirates, where Binalot recently awarded a franchise to the Al Ahli Holding group—the same group earlier reported to be working on a “Little Manila” strip in Dubai. Other homegrown brands that this group plans to bring to Dubai are Jay-J’s (Filipino restaurant), Fruitas (tropical fruit shake retailer), Mochicreme (ice cream), Zagu (pearl milk shake) and Fiftea (milk tea).

Juan told Biz Buzz that the UAE franchisee would help Binalot expand throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), referring to the political and economic alliance of six Middle Eastern countries. He said the target would be to open 21 stores in the GCC region within five years.

“We are bringing a taste of home to our fellow Filipinos who are residing or working abroad. For our next venture, we are looking at the United States and possibly Singapore or Malaysia where we see a dense population of Filipinos,” Juan said.

Binalot is known for having food wrapped in banana leaves. But even if Dubai isn’t a tropical country, the group is lucky because banana leaves are available in the territory right now, Juan said. With Filipinos forming more than 20 percent of the Dubai population, Juan is optimistic that Binalot has a niche in the food community. Doris C. Dumlao

VA said, CMT said

THE DISPUTE between the two sides of what was once a united “CVC” law firm—aka, “The Firm”—continues to rage, with both sides engaging in a tit-for-tat war seemingly meant to push the opposing camp into making a mistake.

To recall, the Villarama & Angangco (VA) side recently cut off the access of the Cruz Marcelo and Tenefrancia (CMT) side to power and water utilities, forcing the latter to temporarily move to an adjacent building (which was prepared in anticipation of such a move).

According to the VA side, they cut off utilities to CMT because the latter didn’t have power and water supply contracts under their own name, despite being a separate law office for over a year now.

“We agreed that we would no longer share office space and utilities by Dec. 31, 2014,” said VA’s managing partner Bienvenido Somera. “Apparently, they did not think it important to secure their own contracts even if that were the more basic of things in establishing an office.”

CMT was able to restore the utilities on their floors of the swanky building in BGC, Taguig with the help of the Bureau of Fire Protection, which is under the Department of the Interior and Local Governments (an agency run by Secretary Mar Roxas with whom the CMT is allied).

In response, the VA side filed a complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman against the BFP personnel for favoring one party in a commercial dispute.

CMT’s response? They described VA’s effort an ‘epic fail’ because it allegedly backfired.

Immediately after the cutoff of utilities to the CMT floors of the building, the BFP and the Taguig City inspectors arrived to check on health and safety issues.

“Despite the strenuous protestations of a barricade of VA partners and their security guards to prevent the inspection, Taguig officials found that the ‘health and safety of all those occupying the building’ were endangered with the disconnection posing a ‘huge risk in the safety of the occupants,’” the CMT side said.

BFP warned that it would “cause the building’s Fire Safety Inspection Certificate to become null and void” due to the multiple fire violations. Ouch.

“With these findings and the order to restore full utilities to the CMT floors, all the Herculean efforts expended by the VA side to attempt their coup de grace appear to have ended with a whimper,” CMT said.

More importantly, CMT has filed a petition to dissolve the partnership and, with it, VA’s claim that it has succeeded CVC as “the Firm.”

The court gave the warring ex-partners an opportunity to talk matters over with some breathing space in the litigation occurring last week. We are also told that an amount was offered by VA to end all litigation, but this amount was countered by CMT, when it stated that it would buy out VA’s interest in the building.

How will this end? Watch this space, folks. Daxim L. Lucas

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