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Baguio OKs ‘irregular’ Athletic Bowl deal


Baguio City’s athletic bowl, home to the city’s athletes and early morning joggers, as well as host to the Panagbenga celebrations and other major tourism drawers, will be leased by the local government for a measly P1.43 per square meter to an unknown company. The seven-hectare prime property — the size of seven football fields — is being managed by the city government of Baguio, and is going to be rented out for P100,000 a month to a “group of investors" that remains unidentified up to now, documents posted by blogger Lisa Araneta on her web site showed. Community newspapers in Baguio have picked up the story and a couple of Facebook groups have been set up condemning the "hasty approval" of the deal and criticizing the mayor's unpopular decisions in the past. A group of lawyers from the city are also reportedly seeking reconsideration of the contract before the council. Baguio City Mayor Reinaldo Bautista, Jr. on behalf of the local government, and a certain An Ho Yul representing the unknown group of investors, have signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) for the development project. But the mayor, in his weekly briefing on Friday, claimed the deal was just a proposal and was not yet final.

Baguio City's seven-hectare Athletic Bowl (center) is now the subject of a deal that is allegedly disadvantageous to the government. Photo by Ric Maniquis
“As of today, we do not know what company the city has signed a deal with to develop the Athletic Bowl," Jose Molintas, appointed member of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the United Nations Human Rights Council, told GMANews.TV in a phone interview. Molintas is also the Liberal Party’s candidate for mayor in Baguio City. Under the deal, signed last December 10 and approved by the council 11 days later, the unknown company will develop the decrepit Athletic Bowl for 25 years for a monthly lease of P100,000, with a 10% increase after five years. This will bring the maximum monthly rent the company will have to pay in the 25th year to only P140,000. The address of the supposed Korean representative was handwritten on the face of the memorandum of understanding as "20 Calla Lily Drive Navy Base Baguio City." The Baguio Chronicle claimed to have gone to the address and confirmed that a Korean named An Ho Yul was renting the orange-colored two-storey residential unit. "A Korean lady, who claimed she was the wife of the alleged investors' representative, said her husband was away on a trip to Korea and would be back next week," the blog site wrote. The MOA does not say when the project will start, although the Build Operate Lease (BOL) scheme — a spin-off of the Built Operate Transfer (BOT) scheme of developing government infrastructure by private firms — provides for a 25-year lease.
This document scan from blogger Lisa Araneta shows the master plan submitted by unidentified investors.
Under the plan, the investors will build a hotel, a driving range, and a bus terminal. Critics have noted that the local government was giving away an Olympic-sized swimming pool that is now part of the prime property to the developer. They also noted that the proposed project was unsolicited and thus could not be awarded unilaterally by the mayor through a negotiated bid. Bautista was not immediately available for comment. Council blessing The city council approved the MOA via Resolution 515 last December 21, 11 days after the signing. “That’s a record," Molintas said, adding that in the past, councilors used to thoroughly investigate the proposals being forwarded to them. Molintas is a former Baguio City councilor. Thirteen out of the 15 councilors signed the resolution. The document showed, however, that one of the absentee councilors had given “prior notice." The other absentee councilor is the chairman on the committee on Burnham Park Management, overseer of matters pertaining to the park, including the athletic bowl. Almost all the councilors are seeking reelection or have relatives seeking public office in the upcoming elections. Molintas said the operation and management of the Athletic Bowl rests with the city, but the the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA) continues to own it. The management, administration, and maintenance of the park was transferred from the PTA to the city government via Executive Order 224 issued by former President Fidel V. Ramos on February 10, 1995. Thirteen years later, on January 10, 2008, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo issued Executive Order 695 “devolving fully Burnham Park to the city of Baguio." Control and development The 2008 order turns over “control and further development" of the park — aside from the power to manage and operate under the 1995 directive — from the PTA to the city government. Teodoro Hernandez, head of the PTA's legal department, confirmed that ownership of Burnham Park remains with the PTA. He also said that their office had not received a copy of the MOA signed by the parties, let alone a request for permission to enter into such contract. Molintas added that only Congress can turn over properties such as the Athletic Bowl to the city government. Bautista could not be reached for comment. “We do not object any development in the city, but it should follow a development plan. This (the lease deal) clearly lacks planning," Molintas said. He added that since the identity of the company remained undisclosed, its capacity to develop the property and sustain these developments is questionable. — NPA/HGS, GMANews.TV
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