By Joel M. Sy Egco

The Veterans Memorial Medical Center and the adjacent Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife are not only covered by the ambitious Quezon City Central Business District plan but are coveted as well by local village units.

Bagong Pag-Asa Chairman Fermin Bilaos has been squaring off with neighboring claims on SM City and Trinoma mall but now finds yet another cross-claim by Barangay Project 6 over the hospital and the recreational facility.

Bilaos, who is president of the Association of Barangay Captains in the city?s First District, says the two properties along North Avenue and Agham Road belong to Bagong Pag-Asa.

?In fact, Project 6 was claiming that the property where the Office of the Ombudsman now stands was within its territory. It?s not true.?

Bilaos said the controversy has reached higher offices but, like in the case of SM which was being claimed by Barangay Sto. Cristo, the city council has kept unseemly silent.

?So far, there is a status quo. I don?t know when talks about the dispute will commence again.?

In a previous interview, Bilaos said Bagong Pag-Asa was amid a tax take dispute over Trinoma and SM properties.

The two giant malls reportedly generate a combined P15 million in real property tax shares for the coffers of villages with Bagong Pag-Asa cornering up to P10 million a year from its RPT share from the Ayala-owned shopping venue alone.

Bilaos said Sto. Cristo gets a portion of the tax revenue from city hall over SM City, notwithstanding a claim by Barangay Magsaysay.

?The latest problem we encountered was when the local parishes from our neighbor barangays already claimed jurisdiction over the North Triangle. Nothing happened because legally and politically, the area is our turf.?

Bilaos said before Trinoma was erected in 2007, the annual gross income derived from the local business sector was only P2.5 million. But when the management paid P44 million in RPT to the city government in early 2008 operations, collection rose to P6.5 million, with P4 million representing Pag-Asa?s share from Trinoma?s dues.

Bilaos said prospects were high on the North Triangle property because the national and city governments have been pushing for the completion of the planned 250-hectare central business district.

The property development would dwarf those of both cities of Makati and Pasig. President Arroyo recently designated Mayor Feliciano Belmonte as chairman of the Urban Triangle Development Commission, a body tasked to oversee the development of the mixed-use hub through Executive Order 620 issued on May 4, 2007.