Subic

I got this from today's issue of The Philippine Star:

Trump, 2 partners to invest over $1B in Subic
By Ma. Elisa P. Osorio
Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Three international real estate firms, including the Trump Organization of real estate mogul Donald Trump, announced yesterday they will invest more than $1 billion in the country for the development of a high-end leisure facility in Subic.

The Trump Organization, which is the primary company of Trump, oversees nearly all of the business development interests of the real estate mogul- such as real estate, hotels, golf clubs, etc. (but excluding the casinos).

The Trump Organization signed a memorandum of agreement with two of its partners, Korean firm Heung-A Property Group (HAPG) and Westgate Resorts Asia Ltd., for the construction of an integrated leisure, sports and entertainment facility.

“Our initial foray in the Subic Freeport zone signals the extreme confidence of various highly funded multinationals with respect to both the near and long- term economic and investment prospects in the Philippines,” Seung Guk Yang, chairman of Subic Neocove Corp. said.
Neocove is a wholly owned subsidiary of HAPG, formed to oversee and manage the project while the Trump Organization will be the lead and master developer of the Subic project.

The billion dollar investment will be built in 457 hectare beachfront facility in Subic. The master plan includes several hotels, residential villas, retail shops, casinos, educational and medical facilities, a convention center, a water park and a spa anchored on a 54-hole golf course.

The entire project will be done in three stages.
The first stage is expected to start in the first quarter of 2009. First to be constructed are the golf course and infrastructure projects like roads. Neocove said they will be spending $250 million for this and will be completed by 2011.
Also expected to be competed first are the basic accommodations like the hotels, the school and the convention center.

The second phase will cost $500 million. The whole project will take 10 years to complete. Youn Jae Lee, chairman of HAPG said the slowdown in the world economy will have no impact on their plan because not only are they adequately capitalized, their target market are high end clients.

The target, he said, are long staying and community tenants mostly coming from the US and Korea. “We hope to maximize the long-term opportunities provided by the various growth areas in this region tapping the future growth of lifestyle, health and real estate investment spending,” Lee added.


My reaction to this is that it's nice that there are still people, let alone a real estate mogul named Donald Trump, who are willing to invest in the Philippines. This also shows a good sign that the Philippines is on the right track on being a "respectable" country and that the we are on our way up as contrary to popular belief that we are spiraling down further. My only concern here is that I hope that they still won't forget their responsibilities and obligations involved, whether it may arise during or after the project.

PACOLI J.

doing our part

“Don’t ask what the government can do for you; ask what you can do for the government.” The words of the great JFK John F. Kennedy himself, it really has impacted a lot of Americans during his time. Hopefully it can also reach all of us Filipinos. The problem with us is that we want everything instant. Instant solutions, instant relief, instant everything, and if we don’t get what we want, we blame it all on the government for their deficiencies and start handing out complaints, instead of just doing their jobs. Sometimes I just wish that I can tell the people that complain to be and the leaders’ shoes and tell them when they say they want out, “I told you so.” I’m not saying that I’m a pro-administration person, I know they really have to clean out some of the mess they did, what I’m saying is that the people should just do their jobs and don’t add to the burden of our leaders. Because in reality, there isn’t anything instant. Our problems here can’t be worked out overnight. We all have our responsibilities to help our country. We need to do our part too. We just can’t rely on our leaders to provide the solution. We need to help them. Don’t be part of the pollution, be part of the solution.

PACOLI, J.

"positive" social rsponsibility

“Positive” social responsibility. In my previous post, I discussed about the negative side, now it’s about the positive one. It is a responsibility that’s an obligation. It arises when some of the entities’ rights have been violated thus an obligation arises to make up for it. It is largely associated with the big companies who expand a lot. They usually build structures that invade into the nature which drives environmentalists nuts. The responsibility of the companies is to make sure that the “nature” will still be there so that everyone’s happy. Another example is that it is a company’s responsibility to give back to society after society has given to them what they want. Popular examples are McDonald’s participation in the Gawad Kalinga, Shell planting trees, and Nescafe’s current projects which are seen on TV commercials.

This is also another way of companies to look good to the public, or in other words, to keep looking good. When people see that they support these projects, they will think that they’re a good company so they’ll buy more products from them.

PACOLI, J.

helping others....

It is very easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking that we must think of what is best for “me”…when in reality what is good for “me” can also be good for someone else…. both purposes can co-exist together. I think most of us in our hearts want to be good…but because of the past or certain experiences we’ve been subjected to in life we tend to get sidetracked and forget in some ways how to be good or look upon goodness as some form of weakness. For me, with the problems that I face I find that each week I have to keep re-learning certain good habits and disregarding the bad ones. What scares me is how easy it is to forget to be kind. With all we deal with we get so caught up in our own lives that we start to forget the things that matter to us the most. I have started each day to try to think of something that I can do to touch someone in a positive light. It could be a smile, or a thoughtful comment, but at the end of the day it does give you a good feeling inside. Yes some people won’t appreciate it….but most will.