PrioritiesPolicies

PART 1: PRIORITIES

in our next meeting, we will discuss our priorities (goals/objectivs) and policies as tito mike proposed. i will give my opinions here. please read everything and try to understand so that we don't waste time going around in circles in the meeting like what happend in today's meeting.

if you love your children and grandchildren and want to give them more economic security, you will read everything i write here line by line, try to understand it and give your own opinions. i drive a motorcycle everyday which is very dangerous and if something happens to me, maybe blunders like the expiration of the toledo court order for titling won't happen anymore, if all heirs follow the policies that i propose here.

i'm the only loser in this family. i have no wife and kids, i have no job. i'm a worthless human being. but the advantage to my being a loser is i'm also the only one who has all the time in the world to do the DUE DILIGENCE and RESEARCH so that our family will be equiped with the information we need to accomplish our goals. why not take advantage of it? read everything i post and try to understand them because they will help you make better decisions and LESSEN YOUR STRESS and lessen your worries. it will also avoid confusion, misunderstandings, and conflicts.

our policies should serve as a template and guide on knowing what to do for every offer and sale for all properties so we don't waste time meeting everytime there is a buyer, only for the buyer to back out. any heir can answer any question the buyer has and tell the buyer everything the buyer needs to know about a property. i'm sick and tired of talking to buyers, brokers and agents that's why i created those package folders so that you don't have to call me and set a meeting with a buyer everytime you get an interested buyer. so that all you have to do is give the folder to the buyer, which already contains everything they need to know about the property for them to make an offer.

agreeing on priorities and policies will also prevent misundertandings and conflicts. the key to understanding any situation is to focus on the consequence. CONSEQUENCE !!! CONSEQUENCE !!! CONSEQUENCE. example if you just find out your son is gay, if you realize there really is no negative CONSEQUENCE for being gay, then you will actually be excited making plans - maybe enrolling your son to figure skating or ballet lessons. or be thankful that your son probabily won't get married and have kids so he will have time to change your diapers when you are old. try your best to not allow emotions cloud your judgement or jump into conclusions that will only ENDANGER THE ECONOMIC SECURITY OF YOU AND YOUR LOVE ONES because we fail to beat the amnesty deadline.

priorities will guide our strategies and policies. so we should first agree on our priorities. here's what i think our priorities should be, in order of importance:

1. i agree with tito virgilio that these properties are not ours and we should fulfill lolo and lola's wishes, which are: - to develop properties for future generations. i refer you to exhibit B for my proposal on how we can develop the properties with minimal risk but optimal returns. - alleviate the economic sufferings and poverty of their pinanggas

2. for the heirs to have funds for medical emergencies and expenses which could save their life. example, if an heir needs a bypass surgery but there is no money the heir could die. i'm giving this a lower priority because these are just the wishes of the heirs, who just inherited the properties from lolo and lola. lolo and lola's wishes should come first. it's also possible lolo and lola wants their pinanggas to die early to be with them in heaven. personally, i'm giving this a lower priority because i'm a terrible person and i believe wealth is more important than human life.

before you crucify me for believing that wealth is more important than human life, the good news is even if we have different priorities, there is no need to argue because the strategies and action items to meet all the different priorites are THE SAME, which is: do whatever it takes to beat the amnesty deadline. example if your priority is to develop the properties to fullfill lolo and lola's wishes, where will we get the money? the money can only come from selling a property. but to sell a property we first need to pay the estate taxes and if we don't beat the amnesty deadline, we will need to sell ALL our properties just to pay the estate taxes, which is STUPID !!!

i agree with tito virgilio that pelaez is the most valuable and only income earning property. but the mambaling buyer is waiting for the court hearing for annotation of right of way, which could come after the amnesty deadline. we are not even sure the buyer will still proceed after the right of way has been annotated on the title. the only thing we can do is hope and pray there will a buyer for other properties who will give us the downpayment enough to pay for the estate taxes. but the only buyer right now is for pelaez, and the deadline is already upon us. if we don't sell pelaez, all our priorities will go down the toilet.

i just told you the wishes and priorities of lolo and lola, and the wishes and priorties of the heirs. now i will tell you my personal wish or priority. i apologize for violating the dogma of separation of church and state or in this case separation of church and estate. i understand we should not impose our religion on others, so i want to make it clear these are just my personal priorities. my priority is to be a good christian especially during these celebration of Sr Sto Nino. and what makes Sr. Sto Nino really happy is when we help our fellow human beings, especially those suffering poverty and sickness. the core christian value is to make SACRIFICES for others. Christ demonstrated this by dying on the cross to save us. if i don't sign the contract for the pelaez sale, i'm basically making my fellow human beings, much more my dear aunts and uncles, suffer longer than necessary, or probably even cost them their life if they need an expensive life saving medical treatment. i'm basically making Sr. Sto Nino and Mother Mary very sad and dissapointed at me. at first, i didn't want to sign the pelaez sale contract because I DON'T NEED THE MONEY and pelaez has sentimental value to me. but if i do that, all my prayers, rosaries, novenas, bible studies, holy mass and blessed sacraments will be irrelevant and useless if i won't make that small sacrifice to help lolo and lola's pinanggas who are suffering poverty and might need the money for life saving medical treatment.

now that we established our #1 priority is to sell a property as soon as possible to beat the amnesty deadline, we need to lay out the possible pitfalls or dangers that could cause all the wishes of lolo and lola to go down the toilet and cause lolo and lola to be very sad

the greatest danger is the delay of the apostille in the US because of the resurgence of the covid-19 pandemic. we also don't know if the new strain of the virus will be contained. for me the best way to protect ourselve from this grave danger is for tito mike and tita jane to assign a lawyer in cebu that they can trust, maybe their classmate, who can be their SPA for the extrajudicial and the sale of any property. they can even assign auntie helen or atty george quimpo and i will fly to cagayan everytime they need to sign something. but it's safer if the lawyer is in cebu because if there is a resurgence or another wave of the virus here, i might not be able to fly to cagayan because of the lockdown.

you should not be angry at what i'm saying because WHAT I'M ASKING YOU TO DO IS WHAT YOU REALLY WANT TO DO. i feel like i'm insulting the intelligence or competence of the heirs for lecturing them as if the heirs are capable of committing monumental blunders and making self destructive decisions. but the heirs allowed the 5 year expiration date of the super favorable court order to have all the toledo lots titled to expire. that would have prevented the landgrabbings that are going on right now on our toledo lots. now we have to file a case and pay a laywer god knows how much, to recover a big chunk of our toledo properties. we don't even know if we will win the case. simply because we failed to do what WAS VERY OBVIOUS - which was to have the lots titled. so can we just for once, look at ourselves in the mirror, learn from our past mistakes and ask ourselves, ARE WE REFUSING TO DO WHAT IS OBVIOUS? i hate to offend people but it's very obvious that for the FIRST PROPERTY we sell, we should just accept any offer that is within 25% of the appraisal value, or else we miss the amnesty deadline. what i'm telling you to do is what you really want to do. if it's what you really want to do, why do i have to tell you? because titling the toledo propertie before the 5 year expiration of the court order is i'm sure what you really wanted to do, but you did not do it. so that's why i feel i have to tell you to do what you really want to do.

PART 2: POLICIES

once we agree on our priority, the next step is to agree on the policies that will help us fullfill our priorities.

our policies should be specific and tailored for our needs and priorities. example, of course it's better to impose a full payment instead of 50% down. and if the estate taxes and Ang has been paid, of course we can impose a full payment policy. it is very dangerous to blindly follow general rules and guidelines because it might not suit our specific need or situation. policies should be well defined or else it will just backfire and cause more misunderstandings. policies should be based on merits, facts, and professional advice, not emotions. this prevents disastrous blunders that could TRAUMATIZE THE HEIRS FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES if we miss the amnesty deadline.

here's what i propose. they are arranged according to importance:

- i think the most important policy we need to agree on is our threshold of price tolerance for the first sale. we can afford to be stringent on the appraisal value after we pay our estate taxes and Ang, but on the first sale, i propose our threshold is 25% below the appraisal value. that means if pelaez is appraised at P30m, we should just accept any offer where we get P22m net (limpyo). please read exhibit A to know the common sense way to value a property. let's look at the CONSEQUENCE: example if we sell pelaez at P20m, the consequence is that we save P56.5m in taxes, which means we practically sold pelaez at P76.5m. if we insist on the appraisal value of P25m and the buyer backs out, we lose P56.5m in taxes only because we were trying to daginut P5m. that's just plain stupidity !!!

- another policy i think is very important is we should inform the buyers that our policy is whoever is first to give the downpayment that can pay Ang and the estate taxes. and of course the contract or agreement should also be solid. example a buyer approached me saying they are ready to give us a manager's check for P15 million but the full payment happens only after the title is under their name. i told them the full payment should happen before the title is under their name, maybe when all the requirements for transfer of ownership has been met. because if the title is already under their name, they won't need to pay us anymore because the property is already theirs. the buyer never contacted me again. it is also good sale tactic to inform the buyer that another buyer promised to give the downpayment in 2 weeks. this will speed up their action if they really are interested on the property. let's focus on the CONSEQUENCE: example, buyer A offers P30m for pelaez, buyer B offers P25m. buyer A promises to give P20m downpayment next week. but buyer B just calls me telling us they are at BDO bank preparing the manager's checks totaling P12m (50% downpayment) and we should go there so we can sign the contract and immediately cash the checks. we tell them to wait 2 weeks because one of the heirs is out of town (but actually we are waiting for buyer A to give the downpayment). during the 2 weeks, buyer B finds a better property to buy and backs out of our deal. buyer A also finds a better property and backs out of our deal. the amnesty deadline expires. so the consequence is lolo and lola's wishes go down the toilet and you are traumatized for the rest of your life.

- until the estate taxes (including toledo) are paid, our policy is to NOT accept earnest money. unless of course the earnest money is enough to pay the estate taxes (but technically that would already be a downpayment). normally it's the advantage to the seller if the buyer gives an earnest money and backs out because the seller gets to keep the earnest money. but in our case, the CONSEQUENCE is it could cause us to miss the amnesty deadline because we can't entertain any other buyer until the earnest money expires. getting free P1 million earnest money is peanuts compared to having to pay P63m in estate taxes instead of P6.5m. this is another example that it's dangerous to blindly follow general practices. in general, it's smart to accept earnest money. but in our case, it's very very dangerous.

- we should accept a payment term of 1 year. this will give us a wider range of buyers and increases our chances of beating the amnesty deadline. it's foolish to have to pay P63m in estate taxes just because we can't wait 1 year to be fully paid. that's just ridiculous. if you think there are potential dangers for a 1 year payment term, you have to inform the heirs. policies should be based on facts and sound legal advice, not emotions. of course it should say in the contract that when the payment deadline has expired, the contract is null and void and we keep the downpayment. consequence !!! consequence !!! consequence !!!

- heirs should know the status of each of our properties. if you don't follow this policy, the CONSEQUENCE is i don't get to play golf or go rubberboating with my chics because i will have to be the one to talk to the buyer. the most up to date status of each property is in our wiki collaboration site (http://covid19.wiki-site.com/index.php/MundingDida). actually i apologize because i still need to update our wiki because i've been busy with our meetings. i will also update the package folders for each property that contain everything a buyer needs to know so we don't waste time meeting with the buyer for an entire afternoon and the buyer will just back out. the next item is just a sub item of this item but very important for our immediate situation:

- for properties that are tied up to Ang, we need to tell the buyer or broker this right from the beginning (the CONSEQUENCE for this is it gives the buyer more confidence. transparency + more information = higher confidence) :

"The heirs would like to disclose that the the owner’s copy of the title is in the possession of Salvador Ang, who's last message to us was that they are in the process of creating a proposal to return the title. Three years ago Mr. Ang agreed to surrender the title in exchange for P3 million but the heirs did not have sufficient funds. The heirs are confident his proposal will be around the ballpark of P3 million. The heirs are convinced that getting the titles from Ang is just a question of when, and not a question of “if”. Maybe we just need to file a case to get the titles or declare it as lost and request a new one from ROD. If the buyer wishes to verify, the heirs would gladly show the finality or court decision to the buyer’s counsel.

There is no reason for any buyer to wait for the owner's copy of the title from Mr. Ang before giving the downpayment. We can stipulate in the contract that the buyer can start using the property, but the full payment should be due once the title is retrived form Mr. Ang and the requirements for transfer of ownership to the buyer are met. If the buyer waits for the title to be retrieved, then the buyer risks losing the property to another buyer who migh be smart enough to do their due diligence and confirms that getting the titles is just a matter of when, not a matter of "if". The worse case scenario for the amount we need to pay Ang is P6m. It cannot exceed P6m. And note the heirs have guaranteed to shoulder the P3m so the worse case scenario is that the buyer will need to give an extra P3m to retrieve the titles. The most likely scenario is that Ang only demands P3m, which means the buyer won't have to pay Ang anything. Mr. Ang is aware that if we file a case, there is a high probability he will have to give up the titles without any payment because they missed a deadline set by the court to submit certain documents. The buyer can setup a meeting with our lawyer, Atty Oscar Tan of the Soza law firm for more details. The bottom line is it's in Salvador Ang's best interest to accept our P3 million offer."

- because only tito virgilio has expertise with real estate, and tito virgilio is always busy, we should always simplify our offer by simply saying, "we pay the estate tax and the price is PXXm net or limpyo". the reason is we don't know how much is VAT, notarial fee, capital gains tax, documentary stamp tax, transfer tax, registration fees, etc ... so we really can't be sure how much we will receive. if we don't follow this policy, the CONSEQUENCE is we waste our time and effort meeting for hours to discuss these annoying items when it could easily be simplified such that we get the same in the end. especially if the buyer will just back out in the end. usually the broker will start tricking you that they won't have anything left for their commission. just tell the broker that it's their problem to patung the price he gives the buyer to make room for their comission. the broker would usually try to trick you and say the buyer is already fixed on the price. simply say, "wala man ko ma buhat ana kay decision mana sa mga heirs ug dle man gyud sila mo pa ubos bisan gamay". sometimes the broker will start blurting out technical terms. just politely say, "sorry sir/maam, wala man gud ko kahibaw unsa na. simply lang, ang amo pangayo PXXm limpyo. kamo na bahala mo compute or mo patong sa buyer".

- another policy we need to agree on to avoid bad blood and legals issues is everyone should agree that 3% be given to the heir who sells any property. example if the current pelaez buyer gives the downpayment, 3% of the sale will be added to tita georgia's share of the proceeds. but the most important policy we should agree on is that tita georgia should use the 3% to buy a jet ski for everyone to use. just kidding. all my friends who bought a jet ski had buyer's remorse because after only 1 day they got sick and tired of the jet ski they wished they just rented and saved tons of money. this brings me to the next policy:

- nobody should buy a jet ski. the consequence for not following this policy is guaranteed buyer's remorse.

- another policy i think is very important to avoid conflicts and legal issues is whenever a buyer gives a payment, we ask the buyer to already give us MC's for each heir. and of course the computation should be posted in our chat group and approved by all heirs first. the laws for inheritance and succession is very clear and strict. do not waste your time trying to be a justice warrior because you will surely lose and pay for big damages and litigation cost. you will only create further chaos and emotional trauma to those you swore to help and protect. just accept the reality. anyway the beneficiary is still the dear love one of those you swore to protect. besides those you vowed to protect will still get a considerable chunk of the inheritance.

- always request an LOI (letter of intent to buy) and bank certification on availability of funds. once they give it, email it to all the heirs. but of course continue to answer their questions even if they haven't given an LOI or bank cert. the CONSEQUENCE for not requesting an LOI is there is just a possibility you waste your time answering questions or talking to the buyer even if the buyer is not that serious.

- we should only meet to discuss the buyer's offer after they give an LOI. but of course you should continue to answer questions and the sale can still happen even without the LOI. it would be foolish to not accept a P20m manager's check for the downpayment of pelaez just because the buyer did not give an LOI. the LOI is a good gauge on the seriousness of the buyer but it's not a perfect gauge. it's possible the broker don't want to reveal the identity of the buyer to avoid someone else approaching the buyer and getting the comission. the LOI and bank certification would reveal the identity of the buyer. we must understand that brokers are just human beings like us working hard to feed their family and send their kids to school. we must be compassionate to fellow human beings because it's the core teaching of Christ. the broker for mambaling let me sign an authority to sell, but i notice that the name of the agent named joy deleon was not in the ATS. joy was the first to approach me. i told the broker he needs to give joy her share that they agreed upon. the broker told me agents have no legal claim and it should be ok to not include them on the deal. i told the broker that i will not sign the contract unless one of the MCs goes out to joy. i let him know that for me, principles are more important than money. that day, joy called me up to thank me and told me God will reward me for my good heart.

- we should not insist on revealing the identity of the buyer. again. focus on the CONSEQUENCE. why the hell would we care who the buyer is, as long as they will pay us? policies should be based on merits, not emotions. of course it's ok to ask for the identity of the buyer. but if the broker refuses, should we stop dealing with them? that would be plain stupidity because it's very possible that buyer could have been our ONLY HOPE to beat the amnesty deadline. focus on the consequence, guided by our priorities.

- we should pay attention to the issues raised by the buyers regarding our property and try to address them. example, for many years we've been trying to sell mambaling but nobody ever bothered to have the right of way annotated on the title, which turns out to be a prerequisite before mambaling can be sold. i'm not a real estate expert and knew nothing about right of ways or titles. i simply listened to the buyer and worked hard to get things done.

- whenever someone posts something in our chat group, we must all read, try to understand, and ask questions if there is something we don't understand. this avoids wasting time and prevents unecessary conflicts. i don't know why i even need to add this policy. all educated people know that communication is the key to the success of any group or organization. example in the meeting we had to waste time discussing issues that's been resolved long time ago such us gikom's talamban townhouse and tita jane's house being in the lolo's list of holdings.

- we must never burn bridges or quarrel with any person who we need or might need to accomplish our goals. that includes lawyers, government workers, engineers, etc ... example, i paid mobilization fee to atty atup but i'm still doing all the leg work. i never say anything about it and just keep thanking them and being grateful for their very valuable advice. you might think i have the right to complain but it could alienate the lawyer and delay the transfer of ownership of the toledo lots, and the CONSEQUENCE is we could miss the amnesty deadline and have to pay P30m in estate taxes for toledo instead of just P1.5m. don't just do what is right, instead do what is necessary to accomplish our goal which is to make lola, lolo, tito gerry and tito bertie smile upon us from heaven.

- money is what gets things done. not emotions. influence also gets things done but keep in mind we don't have family members who hold high office anymore. this is why i never hesitate to give lawyers and fixers large incentives, even if some of you have expressed your disapproval of my strategy. i was embarassed to know engr norvic did a relocation survey for toledo but we never paid him.

- we should consider all our meetings and communication like it's a bull session or brain storming, which is an effective tool to understand each other better and come up with the best ideas that can be critical to meet our goals and priorites. in bull sessions and brainstormings, the rule is that nobody should be afraid to say anything. although saying the wrong thing could hurt someone's feelings, not saying something that's in your mind could be more dangerous because we might miss an idea that could be the key to accomplish our objectives and priorities. another rule for bull sessions and brainstorming is we should be THANKFUL when we receive CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. no human being is perfect and for us to improve, we should encourage people to criticize us.

- as what tita jane suggested, when someone speaks, we should let that person finish speaking and not interrupt. i agree this policy is super important.

- make our #1 priority also your number #1 priority because it translates to easily P30m worth of wealth transferring to you. that means whenever there is something that you need to do, like print/sign/notarize/mail the extrajudicial, DROP EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING and do it right away. even if you are in a meeting with the president. even if you are ill or very weak, do whatever you can to get it accomplished ASAP, like a wounded soldier in the battlefield crawling towards a foxhole to find safety.