Senate probe reveals: HGC, not city government, owns Manila City Jail

MANILA, Philippines - Senators were caught by surprise yesterday when they found out that the Manila City Jail was not owned by the city government but by the Home Guaranty Corp. (HGC).

During yesterday’s hearing of the Senate committee on finance, HGC officer-in-charge Elmer Cadano revealed that the Manila City Jail or the Old Bilibid Prison property was among its assets.

Cadano said the property is now worth P5 billion and that several developers are supposedly interested in acquiring it.

Senate finance committee chairman Franklin Drilon said it was very unusual for the Manila City Jail to be part of the assets of the HGC.

“How they ended up with those assets and how they valued these assets in their books is something that would have to be examined closely,” Drilon said.

According to Cadano, the HGC acquired the property after it was conveyed to them by the Public Estates Authority sometime in 1996.

Cadano said the property was originally under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources but this was turned over to the PEA eventually.

He said the PEA was designated the administrator of the property under the urban renewal program of the Ramos administration.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile argued that the PEA had no business managing the Manila City Jail property in the first place because its mandate was solely to reclaim land.

He said the Manila City Jail property, being a public land, can only be disposed of through the Public Land Act.

Enrile said the urban renewal program that led to the transfer of the property to the PEA was probably the result of the actions of non-lawyers in the government at the time, including former President Fidel Ramos.

In yesterday’s hearing, it was also revealed that 43 percent of the country’s national debt was attributed to the GOCCs.

The HGC is among the 14 GOCCs being monitored and is reportedly losing money, based on the reports of the Commission on Audit.

Drilon said the second briefing of the Development Budget Coordinating Committee on the proposed 2011 national budget today would be focused on the 14 monitored GOCCs in order to see how they are doing financially.

The 14 GOCCs monitored by the DOF are the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, Local Water Utility Administration, Light Rail Transit Authority, Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, National Development Corp., National Electrification Administration, National Food Authority, National Housing Authority, National Irrigation Administration, National Power Corp., Philippine National Oil Co., Philippine National Railways, Philippine Ports Authority and the HGC.