AFP to get P23.43B from sale of camps

Photo of the Jusmag property
development that the BCDA said
allowed it to contribute to the
AFP Modernization Program.

[Unpublished]

Submitted Tue for Wed / Jan 29 for Jan 30, 2013

Written by: Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter

[396 words / 2,566 characters]

THE SALE OF lots in military camps in Metro Manila for the past 19 years has brought cash to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and which is more than the 2013 budget of the DND for maintenance.

In a presentation Tuesday, Arnel Paciano D. Casanova of the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) said that the state-owned firm has given about P23.43 billion to the AFP since it began disposing assets since May 1993.

That amount is shy of the total P25.276 billion in appropriations this year for combined maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) and capital outlay of the Department of National Defense (DND).

The DND's total appropriation for line item MOOE, according to the approved budget for 2013, is listed as P19.848 billion while the department has been given P5.428 billion for capital outlay.

However, the amount is twice greater than the unprogrammed fund appropriation for the capital outlays under the AFP Modernization Program (AFP-MP) this year at P10.632 billion. The AFP-MP is lodged in a trust fund as mandated by Republic Act No. 7898.

Casanova, BCDA president and chief executive, said that the amount they gave to the AFP is part of the P56.627 billion in total disposition proceeds.

"The AFP got the lion's share, which is 41.38 percent of the total," Casanova said in a press forum.

He explained that the share includes the P1.646 billion that BCDA is set to remit next month to the National Treasury.

Likewise, the AFP share is comprised of remittance for the P75-billion AFP modernization program (P12.291 billion) and for the Military Replication facilities (P9.496 billion).

As mandated by law, the BCDA is tasked to dispose of idle AFP camps in Metro Manila, the biggest of which are Fort Bonifacio and Villamor Airbase.

Photo of the Jusmag property
development that the BCDA said
allowed it to contribute to the
AFP Modernization Program.

Casanova said that of the total generated proceeds in the past 19 years, BCDA's share amounted to P12.518 billion or 12.11 percent. The share of 14 government beneficiaries, he added, was at P7.364 billion (13.02 percent).

The remaining amolunt represents payments for taxes and fees related to disposition, replication of non-military facilities (P9.996 billion), and share of the contiguous municipalities (P463 million), he added.

Casanova said other direct expenses consisted of relocation of informal occupants, construction of site development projects, and administrative expenses.

"We have no control of how the AFP Modernization Program funds are being spent. We just raise revenue and remit to the National Treasury," he said in reaction to accusationst that the BCDA is benefiting more than the AFP.