The depravity that is the new Senate building
THE cost of the new Senate building zoomed from the P4.6 billion the chief proponent of the project, the then-senator Panfilo Lacson claimed in 2018, to P18 billion on its groundbreaking in 2019, to the P23 billion that the Senate’s new leadership recently discovered.
I wrote in 2018 that based on data from contractors that I consulted, who were shown the plans, the project would cost at the very least P10 billion. Lacson issued a press release denying my estimate, and even arrogantly posted in a tweet: “I based my figure on fact; Bobi based his on ‘opinion.’ Pray tell me if it’s worth arguing with him.”
Lacson will certainly have to be arguing with Sen. Alan Cayetano, who is leading the investigation on why the building’s cost has zoomed. The new Senate building has already cost P23 billion — nearly five times Lacson’s fake data of P4.6 with me. It is becoming so obvious that Lacson and his allies in the Senate had insisting on the P4.6 billion “fact” to make the costs for a project to satisfy 24 huge egos and to facilitate their dining and shopping in the upscale Bonifacio Global City, seem reasonable.
Now Lacson is claiming that the “new total cost of P23.3 billion includes the cost of the fit-out accessories and technical components of the security system as well as the land acquisition cost.”
He didn’t know that the new Senate building to be functional had to include these costs, especially the cost of land acquisition, and he kept insisting for several years that it would cost only P4.8 billion? You’re selling me a house for P10 million, and then when the sale is to be finalized, you tell me that I have to add P4 million, the cost of the land it is built for, sorry you forgot?
He didn’t know that the new Senate building to be functional had to include these costs, especially the cost of land acquisition, and he kept insisting for several years that it would cost only P4.8 billion? You’re selling me a house for P10 million, and then when the sale is to be finalized, you tell me that I have to add P4 million, the cost of the land it is built for, sorry you forgot?
In 2018, Lacson issued a press release (titled “On the allegations made by Bobi Tiglao”) which said: “The P127-million-per-year rental that the Senate is paying GSIS for a subpar legislative building is our main reason for finding a need to look for a new and permanent home.”
Now costing P23.3 billion, which contractors say could even rise, based on recent photos of the construction, to P30 billion. Lacson has to admit now that the new Senate building’s cost of P23.3 billion is the equivalent of two centuries worth of rent to the GSIS; or put another way, the Senate would recover its investment for it in two centuries, based on the P127 million in rentals that it is now paying.
Another reason for a new Senate building, Lacson said, is that the present Senate headquarters’ toilets that visiting dignitaries have to use, “stink.” I
don’t think it would cost P100 million to have all of the washrooms in the Senate completely renovated, air-conditioned and even provided with Japanese-type of toilets.
I’m starting to wonder why in his last years at the Senate, Lacson championed the construction of a new Senate building, which he won’t be enjoying. He loves the institution so much and the unknown senators who would occupy it in the future? Was he thinking people would later dub it “Lacson’s Legacy”?
Perhaps Filipinos would dub it as such, but not to honor him. I am not accusing Lacson of anything, but I have to inform readers that huge construction projects have been traditionally the source of corruption — which has in fact worsened under this regime with congressmen reportedly asking for as high as 40 percent of a government contract, from only 20 percent in previous administrations. How ironic it is, and a total condemnation of our legislature, if it were found that the new Senate building has been a source of hundreds of millions of corruption — which I highly suspect it is.
Huge projects such as this P23.3 billion for the Senate would have over hundreds of subcontractors and suppliers. A senator could very easily approach the main contractor, Hilmarc Construction Co. — the same contractor that Senator Cayetano had accused in 2016 of involvement in the corrupt deals surrounding the construction of the infamous P2.3 billion Makati City Hall Building II — to get as supplier or subcontractor a company the legislator would designate and get a commission from it. Imagine if just 10 percent of the costs goes to the pocket of politicians: That would be P2.3 billion of taxpayer’s money going to the corrupt.
Unquestioned
For the new mammoth Senate building project to have gone ahead without being questioned by its other members for six years since its launch in 2018 is astounding and even suspicious. Whatever the reason, it however points to a deep flaw of our Senate.
In the first place, it is the biggest project ever that the Senate has undertaken since its founding in 1916, which common sense therefore would have required the most rigorous examination. Several other senators, among them Win Gatchalian (who first proposed it and whose father William was a property magnate), Nancy Binay, Cynthia Villar (to be joined by her son Mark, who was even public works secretary), could have easily spotted that the P4.8 billion figure that Lacson said it would cost was unrealistic. They didn’t raise a peep.
It’s another evidence of a deep flaw in our Senate as an institution. The US Senate for instance is divided mainly into Republicans and Democrats, who consult their parties on the stand they take concerning issues facing the chamber. By contrast, our Senate is merely an exclusive club devoid of ideology. If there is such an ideology, it is scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours principle, that is, “I’ll support your proposal for a law, you support me later, of course.” Senators Lacson and Gatchalian pushed for this project whose cost would balloon to P23 billion, other senators agreed to it, either paying for past or future scratches on them.
If I were superstitious I would even say that Fate had intervened to stop this scandalous Senate project: the Covid-19 pandemic hit us (and the world) in 2019. As a result, our economy contracted by 10 percent, even beating the record low of a 7 percent fall in 1984 at the height of the debt crisis and a political upheaval. Right after the pandemic subsided and the economy recovered, however, the project was resumed, oblivious to the fact that the government deficit had plunged to an all-time low of 9 percent, as businesses stopped during the Covid-19 restrictions resulting in extremely low government revenues.
Pandemic
The Senate went ahead with the project with its proponents and contractors even blaming the steep rise in the costs of the project on the pandemic’s supply interruptions. Compare the features of the new Senate building to the Vietnam’s National Assembly building constructed from 2009 to 2014 — and weep:
– The Vietnamese building cost the equivalent of P7 billion; the new Senate edifice, P23 billion;
– It will house 400 legislators; ours, 24 Senators;
– Its floor area is 63,240 square meters; ours is 90,000 sqm.
No wonder with the utmost care that its government gives to its projects, Vietnam’s gross domestic product per capita of $3,352 in 2020 had overtaken our $3,195 in 2020. As demonstrated in the case of the new Senate building, there is certainly a lot of truth to that infamous quip, “We are a poor nation pretending to be rich.”
What is so scandalous about this new Senate building is that there is another incontrovertibly more necessary project the country should have been undertaking: Building the infrastructure necessary to defend the seven Spratly group features that we have occupied, at least its biggest islands, Pag-asa and Likas islands.
While several senators keep beating their chests that we should not give an inch of “territory” to China (or Vietnam), they haven’t made any substantial move to fortify these islands from invasion, even at least to the level the Vietnamese have. Since 2018, only P100 million has been provided to repair the airstrip on Pag-asa Island, construct a puny weather station there and build new barracks to accommodate the increase in military and civilian presence in the seven islets we occupy.
By contrast, since 2018, the Vietnamese have reclaimed 219 hectares on the features it has occupied (which were mainly reefs), estimated to cost $1 billion (about P48 billion) and installed 12 oil rigs costing $10 million each, refitted as military outposts guarding their territory.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros has devoted considerable Senate resources to prove that a thirtyish Chinese-Filipino woman politician isn’t Filipino and is the financier for illegal POGOs, which by law should be the job of investigative agencies like the National Bureau of Investigation. President Marcos Jr. himself arm-twisted Congress to get P125 billion in funds from the Bangko Sentral and two other state banks to set up a really quixotic Maharlika Investment Fund. It has existed for a year now attracting not a single dollar of investments, yet its chief executive officer handpicked by Marcos has been asking for a monthly salary of P2.5 million.
It is obvious that the Senate should investigate how this financial monstrosity costing taxpayers P23 billion was and is being undertaken. Or will the Senate prove itself indeed as an exclusive club that cannot investigate its own members, past and present?
Sell it, or be known as the two most scandalously profligate Senates in our history.
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The depravity that is the new Senate building
Source: Breaking News PH
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