The Bureau of Corrections admitted on Monday that it is not capable of managing the 5,308.36-hectare banana plantation inside the Davao Penal Colony reservation, which is currently being managed by the Tagum Agricultural Development Co. Inc.
BuCor Director Benjamin delos Santos made the admission even as he said that he is still waiting for the final recommendations of the Department of Justice as well as the House of Representatives, which conducted the inquiry into the 25-year joint venture agreement between BuCor and Tadeco. The DoJ exercises administrative supervision over the agency.
Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez earlier sought a legislative probe into the BuCor-Tadeco JVA over the DPC’s property allegedly for being grossly disadvantageous to the government. He questioned, among others, the firm’s annual payments for both lease and profit sharing as only a fraction of the prevailing market rate.
While waiting for the final recommendations of the DoJ and the House committees on justice and on good governance and public accountability, Delos Santos admitted that as far as the agency is concerned, “we do not have the capability and expertise to manage the plantation.”
De los Santos made the statement after the DoJ’s fact-finding committee earlier made an observation that the BuCor-Tadeco JVA is “fraught with infirmities.”
There are still 12 years remaining under the JVA, which provides that the government should receive a guaranteed payment of P26.542 million per year for the lease of the land or P5,000 per hectare.
Tadeco president and chief executive officer Alex Valoria earlier told lawmakers that the government, without spending a single centavo, earned a total of P142.72 million in 2016 alone, representing a 45-percent share under the joint venture agreement. Tadeco is owned by the family of Davao del Norte Rep. Antonio Floirendo Jr.
“All of our contingency planning will be subject to the final outcome of the congressional investigation and recommendations of the DoJ,” Delos Santos said, when asked if BuCor already has a plan should the lease contract with Tadeco over the DPC property is canceled.
DoJ Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre vowed to come up with final recommendations after reviewing the contract, which he said aims to maximize the government’s resources to generate funds for the social and infrastructure programs of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Aguirre, who noted that the JVA was renewable for another 25 years, admitted it would be difficult to renegotiate the terms of the agreement at this point.
The DoJ secretary, however, was caught unawares that the primary goal of the joint venture agreement was to rehabilitate the inmates of Dapecol.
“I was not informed that this contract constitute some parts of rehabilitation of the inmates,” Aguirre told lawmakers during a congressional hearing on the contract.
Under the deal, Tadeco committed to use inmates from the Davao Prison and Penal Farm and pay them “minimum daily wages” and provide them with “necessary emergency medical measures.”
“I can say, however, that the relationship between Tadeco and the Bureau of Corrections is a joint venture with the purpose of reeducation and rehabilitation of inmates to ready them for eventual release to society together and in conjunction with the development of the lands covered in the joint venture agreement, one must look at the entire JVA and not pick and choose specific provisions,” Valoria said, adding that of the 12,000 workers, 1,000 of them are DPFF inmates.
The contract dates back to the Marcos administration when the first joint venture agreement was signed in July 1969 and consolidated into a fresh 25-year contract in September 1979.
A year before its expiry, the contract was renewed in May 1, 2003 between Floirendo’s father, Antonio Floirendo Sr., and then BuCor chief Ramon Liwag.