Cebu City fully pays SRP loan after 27 years

SRP | CDN Digital file photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City government has fully paid its 27-year-old loan for the development of South Road Properties and can now be considered as SRP debt-free.

Lawyer Jerome Castillo, the special assistance for fiscal reforms of Mayor Mike Rama, said the city government recently paid a total of P904,898,606.27 for its SRP debt. The amount covered the city’s last semi-annual amortization amounting to P145,631,585.45 that was paid on Aug. 19 and its loan balance of P759,267,020.82 that was due and paid on Aug. 23.

“Yes. We have paid already the full amount of the balance of our SRP loan, including the last amortization and the balance. We are actually without (SRP) debt na,” Castillo told CDN Digital in a phone interview on Wednesday, August 31, 2022.

“When we were presented with the clearance by the Bangko Sentral, that’s the time for us to pay na because the bank cannot debit our account without clearance from the Bangko Sentral. The moment we got the clearance and scheduled it on August 23, that’s the final date for full payment,” he added.

Castillo said that the issuance of the certificate of full payment will follow and based on the initial information they got, the top executives of the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) is set to deliver the certificate to the City of Cebu and hand this to Mayor Rama on September 16, 2022.

Castillo said the money which they used to pay off the balance of the city’s debt was sourced from what remains of its revenues from the sale of parcels of the SRP  in 2015.

“Naa pa to’y portion sa sale. It was included, for the regular amortization, sa annual budget, and then the balance, it’s covered from a supplemental budget. All amounts were sourced from the sale of SRP,” he said.

A separate report from the Public Information Office (PIO) said that the last amortization of P144.6 million included the at least P126 million for the loan’s principal that was paid to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) with accumulated interest for six months amounting to P11.6 million and another P6.5 million that was paid to the LBP.  The city also had to pay another P1 million for documentary stamps.

The city’s loan balance, on one hand, covered over P753 million for the principal and interest for four days of over P164,000 to JBIC and close to P13,000 to LBP.

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