The proposed development of the National Power Corporation (NPC) property in Diliman, Quezon City into a mixed-use commercial complex will warrant the corporate life extension of state-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation.
PSALM President Irene Besido-Garcia said that while the Department of Finance (DOF) already approved the privatization plan for the Diliman property, it also requires that PSALM’s corporate existence be extended first.
“While there is already a go-signal from the DOF to pursue the development of the property, it is imperative that we first work on the extension of PSALM’s corporate life,” Garcia expounded.
She noted of a pending bill filed by House Committee on Energy Chairman Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, but the proposed measure would still need to go through the usual maze of legislative processes.
Garcia reiterated that the corporate life of PSALM will only be up to June 2026, but DOF belies that “for that project (NPC complex transformation), it is a very long term development and to be able to pursue that, we have to work on the extension of PSALM’s corporate life.”
The development blueprint initially cast for the 5.195-hectare NPC property aims to convert it into a mixed-use commercial strip patterned after the business district metamorphosis of Fort Bonifacio Global City.
PSALM engaged in 2019 the consulting services of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to do the feasibility study for the privatization and development plan of the Diliman property.
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, re-adjustments have to be incorporated in the earlier crafted privatization design for that real estate asset.
“There’s a feasibility study being done by PwC, but we have to make some adjustments in presumptions there -- including details on the development because of the pandemic,” the PSALM chief executive explained.
Garcia added that “the pandemic had caused a lot of changes in the real estate development and because of this, we have to do some adjustments in the assumptions of the study.”
The updated PwC study, she stressed, had already been submitted to the finance department and that became the basis of it green-lighting the project, albeit with a primary condition that PSALM, being the implementing entity, will have to guarantee first that its corporate longevity will be stretched beyond 2026.