Budol-budol, salisi con gangs prey on home owners

Iloilo City (January 31, 2017)

Homeowners of Parc Regency, a subdivision in Pavia, Iloilo are victims of the combined "budol-budol" and "salisi" gangs, actually company officials disguised as officers of a bogus homeowners’ association.

Buyers started residing there in 2011 and more are still coming to occupy over 3,000 plus units. They are all up in arms because to date, the subdivision has no connection to the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD), telephone land lines and cable TV.
The basic amenities of modern urban life is yet to reach this subdivision.
MIWD cannot set up its pipes inside Parc Regency. The subdivision sells homeowners coliform-contaminated water, at P35 per cubic meter, about twice the rate charged by government-owned MIWD for residential units. Homeowners have to buy drinking water outside.
What riled more the residents though is that a cabal of Parc Regency officials usurped the functions of the home owners association that charged them P850 monthly for alleged maintenance of street lights, janitorial, water, security, garbage collection and drainage services.
One who bought a unit last year got a shock of her life when she was billed P10,000 for arrears in “monthly dues”. Another, veteran mediaman Manuel Mejorada who transferred only in 2015, was charged P17,000. Others fared worse -- the usurpers demanded as much as P35,000.
There was no general assembly held by homeowners to justify the directorate of the home owners’ association. Who elected them and when and how they got voted was one question raised to them by irate home owners which the pretenders can’t answer.
The Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) has not issued Parc Agency any certificate of completion (COC) because it has not yet completed its land development: it still must finish its road network, drainage and power lines, among others.
The home owners’ association is not even registered with either the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the HLURB. It has no constitution and by-laws to present when asked in one meeting with some residents. When pressed, they furnished her a purported copy, one signed by the supposed officers but un-notarized: its contents are mere copy-and-pasted from the template of another Parc Regency subsdivision in Luzon.
How did the ersatz home owners’ association spend their collections over the years? It has no book of accounting to present.
Home owners are charged for the maintenance of the club house which has a swimming poor: both income earners. Their supposed officers cannot present the earnings and costs-of-maintenance of the two facilities.
Homeowners don’t mind paying for security guards stationed at the entrances and those patrolling the streets but they question the policy of charging homeowners for the salaries of blue guards securing construction sites and the warehouse.
Incidentally, all the supposed homeowners’ association officers sport flashy cars.

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