The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) is again in the eye of a storm because of a hotel to be constructed by another Korean company. The SBMA has been criticized because Filipino workers are dying in the construction site of Korean shipbuilder Hanjin within the Subic Bay Freeport. This time the problem is over environmental concerns and corruption.
Noted urban planner/architect Jun Palafox, a bidder for consultancy services for the proposed Ocean 9 Casino-Hotel project inside the free port, told the press last week that his company got out of the project because more than 300 trees, some of them “centuries old,” in the project site would be cut. The newspapers also reported that “an executive of the state-controlled SBMA had asked his [Palafox’s] firm for an 18-percent commission in exchange for the official getting them on the short list of bidders for a previous project updating the free port’s master development plan.” Palafox was quoted as saying, “We refused it because it went against the core values of honesty and transparency.” The company was disqualified.
Stung by the statement, SBMA Administrator Armand Arreza went to the Kapihan sa Manila media forum last Monday (and to the Kapihan sa Sulo forum the previous Saturday) to refute the allegations. In the first place, Arreza said, not one tree has been cut, or will be cut, for the Korean-owned casino-hotel. He said they have directed the developer, Grand Utopia Inc., “to either incorporate the trees in their development plan, or ball them for relocation.”
Although the developer applied for a tree-trimming and relocation permit last Nov. 26, not one tree has been cut or moved to this day, Arreza said. This application is still under review.
In the second place, Arreza continued, there are no centuries-old trees in the project site. He said they made an inventory of trees from August to October 2008 and counted 369 trees in the area. Classified according to their size, the trees consisted of 26 seedlings, 117 saplings with girths of 6-10 cm, 69 poles with girths of 11-20 cm, and 157 trees measuring 21 cm and above. “Only seven trees in the area have girths beyond one meter,” he said. “Moreover, geological studies conducted at the project site indicate that the area was reclaimed by the US Navy from swampland in the 1950s and 1960s. This finding makes it impossible for the area to be the location of century-old trees.”
Allegations of attempted extortion are unfounded, he said. But the truth is that the Palafox firm was not disqualified. Out of the 12 companies that participated in the bidding, Palafox and its partner were among the seven that qualified. Among them, only three firms, including Palafox’s, submitted technical and financial proposals, the basis for the final evaluation. However, after evaluations were made, Palafox only ranked second. Another firm was declared the winner.
The SBMA asked Palafox to identify the person who delivered the extortion message but the latter refused to cooperate, Arreza said. “We are trying to investigate but we have nothing to go by.”
The SBMA administrator insinuated that Palafox was a sore loser and “invented” the extortion story. Why else is he not cooperating?
As I see it, the fact that Palafox refuses to name the extortionist does not mean that the extortion attempt did not happen. As the saying goes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Considering what has been going on in this government, it is not hard to believe another extortion attempt. There are so many commissioners in the Arroyo administration. This government is going out in one year and officials are probably providing for their future.
So why is Palafox not cooperating? Can you blame him? He has seen what happened to whistle-blowers, notably Jun Lozada and Jose de Venecia III who exposed the ZTE-NBN bribe try. Then there is the fertilizer fund scam and the jueteng bribery scandal. After lengthy investigations, the accused are still free as birds and it is the whistle-blowers who are now being harassed. With such precedent, we can’t blame Palafox for deciding that prudence is the better part of valor.
This is not to say that the extortion story is true either. It is possible there was a free-lancer who tried to pull a fast one. That has happened before. A recent case was a free-lancer who was able to get P3 million from Pagcor on the pretext that it was for a Manila government foundation. The scam was discovered by Pagcor and City Hall, however, and the free-lancer is now facing charges.
As for the trees, the pictures that were in the SBMA handouts showed that some trees on the hotel construction site are really small, but there are also big ones. They may not be centuries-old, but they certainly are big and many years old. The term “centuries-old” is a mere figure of speech. When Filipinos see a big tree, their reflex action is to describe it as “centuries-old.”
As for “balling” them, and not “cutting” them, this may be hair-splitting. The Philippine record in “balling” and relocating big trees is very poor. The trees often die. Look at the trees that used to grow along some of Manila’s streets. They were “balled” and relocated by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and the Department of Public Works and Highways, but few survived. “Balling” is often interpreted by skeptics as “boladas” [untruths] meant to assuage environmentalists without saving trees.
And modern architecture now incorporates nature and the environment into the plans. Trees now grow inside homes and hotel lobbies. Haven’t they heard of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Falling Waters”?
