A JOINT panel in the House of Representatives will begin its probe into the row between two presidential allies over a public-private land-lease deal in Davao del Norte that allegedly has robbed the government of hundreds of millions of pesos worth of recurring non-tax income.
The House committee on good government and public accountability and the committee on justice are set to conduct on May 9 their joint preliminary probe into the joint venture agreement between the Bureau of Corrections and Tagum Agricultural Development Co. Inc. or TADECO, which is owned by the family of Davao del Norte Rep. Antonio Floirendo Jr.
The JVA has been denounced as “grossly disadvantageous to the government” by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, who has filed a resolution asking Congress to carry out a probe into the matter.
Both Alvarez and Floirendo are known political allies and personal friends of President Rodrigo Duterte. Alvarez and Floirendo represent the first and second districts of Davao del Norte, respectively.
“Politics aside, every accusation that a public transaction is highly detrimental to the government is a grave matter that we are duty-bound to investigate painstakingly,” said Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel, chairman of the House committee on good government and public accountability.
“Under the law, the performance of any contract deemed ‘manifestly and grossly disadvantageous’ to the government constitutes a punishable corrupt practice, whether or not the public officers involved profited or will profit from the transaction,” Pimentel said.
The JVA concerns TADECO’s 25-year lease of 5,038 hectares of public land at the Davao Prison and Penal Farm in the cities of Panabo and Tagum in Davao del Norte.
TADECO has been using the BuCor property to cultivate fresh Cavendish bananas that are exported under the Del Monte brand.
In return, TADECO has been paying BuCor a fixed annual rent of P6,050 per hectare plus a share of 23 centavos for every P100 worth of bananas shipped to Japan, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, the Middle East, Russia, Malaysia and Singapore.
But Alvarez says the annual lease rate amounts to less than one-fourth of the prevailing P25,000 per hectare in the district.
Alvarez also assailed BuCor’s allegedly paltry share from every box of bananas shipped out and the unusually extensive lease term that he said was more than double the customary 10-year tenure.
The Office of the Solicitor General recently declared that the BuCor-TADECO deal openly violated the 1987 Constitution and a Commonwealth-era edict restricting the use of public land.