By Rio N. Araja

SOME 1,300 rank-and-file employees of the Metro Manila Development Authority have bought for P5.8 million a 285-square-meter prime lot in Makati City for investment.

Betty Gendeve, chairman of the Kooperatiba sa Pagpa-paunlad ng mga Nagkakaisang Kawani ng MMDA Inc., said the members also recently acquired a two-story, four-door apartment-type building near the MMDA headquarters on Orense Street.

She said the group was planning to lease out the second floor to bedspacers, mostly MMDA workers, while the ground floor?s four-door space would be for commercial space.

?We can accommodate at least 40 bedspacers,? she told Standard Today, adding that city hall had yet to approve the application for a certificate of occupancy.

Gendeve boasts workers are already owners of a resort in Laguna, a real-estate firm and a bank.

In 2007, the cooperative reported P34 million in assets.

The spa in Pansol represents a P1-million capital maintained for the Federation of Cooperatives? subdivision developer in Metro Manila, along side a P200,000 investment in the Metro South Cooperative Bank.