Babe's Eye View article

I had lunch with our Ambassador to Japan Domingo "Jun" Siazon the other day, and he told me about the moves to lease the country's properties in Tokyo for 50 years. Our lunch was supposed to be about the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement or JPEPA and its implications to our economy and our relations with Japan, but it was so upsetting to hear about this foolhardy plan of destroying our patrimonial properties.

The Philippines has a number of properties located in Japan. One of them is this prime residential and commercial property in Nanpeidai (with two Japanese groups fighting over the right to lease the asset), the others in Roppongi, Kobe and Shibuya. These properties were part of reparations from Japan and were obtained with "blood money"—the blood of Filipinos who sacrificed their lives during the Second World War. Destroying these properties will be a desecration of the memory of many Filipino war veterans who gave up their lives for this country.

The Ambassador's residence is located in Fujimi Kudan, a very prestigious area in Tokyo. And now, there are plans to build a condominium over that property and putting up the Ambassador supposedly at the penthouse. Our Ambassador will be forced to live in a less illustrious structure that does not reflect the stature of a country like the Philippines, especially in a place like Japan.

For heaven's sake, even the Laotian Ambassador's residence is located in a prime area in Tokyo. But here we are, reducing the stature of our representative to Japan, disregarding the historical significance of the property which used to be the residence of a baron and is considered a heritage site. While it was not part of reparations from Japan, it was bought by President Jose P. Laurel in 1944 and has been the residence of Philippine Ambassadors since the time of Jorge Vargas.

Of all people, GMA should know the historical significance of this residence. Her father, President Diosdado Macapagal, and her mother were the only presidential couple to stay there during the presidential state visit in 1964 with then Ambassador Mauro Mendez as our chief of mission to Japan.

As early as 1989 during the administration of Cory Aquino, there were already moves to sell the government's Roppongi property to raise money, but this outraged the Filipinos living in Japan so much that eventually, bidding attempts failed. Moves to sell these properties were revived in 2002 but Filipinos in Japan, led by architect Francis Yu, raised such a big howl that GMA backtracked.

Jun Siazon had been very vocal in resisting moves to dispose of our Tokyo properties even before. In fact, in an interview five years ago, he said the Filipino, even if he is not rich, takes pride in having such representation in Japan. We should never sell or lease this valuable residential property.

As Sen. Joker Arroyo had pointed out, a 50-year lease is practically the same as a sale. And as one foreign ambassador friend of ours said, selling an important and significant piece of property is like saying goodbye to one's patrimonial heritage. We can technically never get it back, especially in a place like Tokyo where real estate is like a rare piece of heirloom.

Which reminds me of a valuable Philippine government property located right in the middle of Union Square in San Francisco that was hastily sold shortly after EDSA 1 in 1986. That piece of property was sold for $2 million, and is now worth over $200 million.

There is nothing wrong in selling some properties that have no prime value and are more of a burden because they cost a lot of money to maintain. That's what former Ambassador to Washington DC Albert del Rosario was trying to do when some of the properties in the US were proving to be more burdensome to keep. But prime properties in Tokyo, Washington and New York—considered as patrimonial property—should never be disposed of. The Supreme Court was right when it ruled in 1991 that these properties are national patrimonies and should not be sold without a national referendum.

Selling or leasing out valuable government properties for 50-year periods is a false kind of economy and certainly not a smart way to raise revenues. Whoever thought of this "bright idea" is probably trying to pull another one of those quick-buck tricks. I can smell a rat here, and it's as fishy as that sideshow of destroying P30 million worth of smuggled luxury cars in Subic.

They destroyed BMWs, Toyotas, Pajeros, Hyundais, Nissans and even a Chevy and a Lincoln Navigator—but spared the most expensive European cars—Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini—ostensibly for "legal" considerations. Everybody knows a lot of smuggling is going on in Subic particularly of fuel, so why don't we just go after these oil smugglers, where billions of pesos are lost on tax revenues. And by the way, P30 million is nothing to sneeze at. Instead of destroying those luxury cars, they could have sold them and used the money where it's badly needed—like building schoolhouses.

We're supposed to have other disposable assets such as those sequestered properties like the raw land in Texas and other parts of the world. Instead of resorting to quick-buck solutions, why don't we work on long-term plans to make use of these assets and raise revenues? For heaven's sake, can we just stop getting rid of patrimonial properties!