Most of the country’s private schools—even well known colleges and universities—are to say the least economically hard up. Many of them are in the red because of the rising cost of just maintaining the minimum standards for quality education.
Still, the same schools are surviving. Some opt to look for more investors while others go to their existing stockholders to tide them up. A lot of them also enter into joint real estate ventures to save their school.
But sometimes, things just go sour and the property where the schools stand has just to be foreclosed. Jose Abad Santos Memorial School is one case that deserves a closer look if only for the names of the people who own it and the institution, specifically the Philippine Women’s University (PWU).
Their reputation cannot be assailed but now they are being asked to vacate a hectare of JASMS after Jardine Land Inc. foreclosed the property for the school owners’ failure to settle about P200-million in bad loans.
Jardine cannot be faulted for it, though, because for years, the loans remained unpaid since 1998. In 2002, Jardine, foreclosed the JASMS property where a number of school buildings are erected.
Now, JASMS and the incorporators—PWU and sister company Unlad Resources Development Corp. — have to relocate so that the non-performing asset of Jardine can become useful.
PWU’s board of trustees of JASMS is mainly composed of Helene Benitez, former senator and Philippine Women’s University chairman; Dean Lucrecia K. Kasilag, co-founder of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP); Manuel S. Alba, former secretary of public works and highways; and Sylvia P. Montes, former secretary of social welfare and development.
As a corporation owned by common stockholders Unlad Resources Development Corp. (Unlad) and the PWU, it is the subject of foreclosure proceedings in so far as its mortgaged property are concerned.
Jardine Land Inc. in 2002 foreclosed the onehectare property previously owned by JASMS in the name of Unlad. In 2004, Jardine Land consolidated the property although actual possession remains to be with the PWU-Unlad group.
The lawyers of Unlad and PWU say that the affected classrooms located in the one-hectare foreclosed property can easily be relocated to the remaining lots owned by the PWU in the event possession will be transferred in favor of Jardine Land by final judgment of the court.
Of the top 20 schools in the country, however, only two are losing.
Among the most profitable schools in absolute terms are Mapua Institute of Technology, P406.52 million; Centro Escolar University, P236 million; University of the East, P50.12 million; Technology Institute of the Philippines, P14.09 million; AMA Computer College, P5.44 million; Lyceum of Batangas, P33.98 million; University of Perpetual Help System Laguna, P15.35 million; and Cebu Institute of Technology, P16.89 million.
Also on the list are Kumon Philippines, P16.09 million; Philippine School of Business Administration QC, P30.40 million; Manila Central University, P32.08 million; Diwa Learning Systems, P3.72 million; Central Colleges of the Philippines, P4.04 million; University of Batangas, P4.33 million; Arellano University, P1.13 million; Southwestern University, P15.70 million; and National College of Business & Arts, P5.44 million.
The top losers are Systems Technology Institute, P17.02 million; and Roosevelt College, P3.02 million.
