EDITORIAL - Not so fast

In the heart of Quezon City, 200 hectares of prime real estate could fetch about P200 billion in the property market. That’s the estimate of government officials who are considering a proposal to sell the lands where the headquarters of the military and Philippine National Police now sit. Part of the proceeds will go to the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

For the AFP, which gets P5 billion annually for modernization, P200 billion is a lot of money. But much of the amount will go to narrowing the budget deficit. What’s left will have to be shared by the AFP with the PNP, which also suffers from an acute lack of basic equipment for law enforcement and crime investigation.

Transferring national headquarters does not come cheap. The price tag for providing new homes for the AFP and PNP is likely to be hefty and must be deducted from their share in the planned sale.

The government must also consider the warning aired by several quarters about the nature of the properties in question. The lands are reportedly covered by deeds of donation, which stipulate that the properties be used specifically for military installations. Otherwise, the lands will revert to the donors. The administration, which is gaining notoriety for legal lapses, should study the documents covering the properties and find out the conditions covering the donations.

Finance officials have clarified that selling camps Aguinaldo and Crame is just a secondary option in the government’s revenue-raising efforts. But if the sale pushes through, the administration should see to it that much of the money will actually go to the military and police.

When vast tracts of prime real estate within the Fort Bonifacio military reservation were sold to private developers, Taguig underwent an economic boom. But the AFP waited for its majority share of the profits… and waited… and waited. To this day there are retired military officers who are complaining that the AFP never received its rightful share. Those complaints are worth looking into before a new administration embarks on yet another major disposal program involving military land.