Fourteen senators voted last week to relocate the office of the Philippine Senate to Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig from its current location in Pasay City.
BGC offered a 20,000-square-meter (sq-m) (2-hectare) property at the price of P90,000 per sq m, or a total of P1.8 billion, according to Senator Panfilo M. Lacson, the chairman of the Senate committee on accounts, who conducted hearings on the proposed relocation of the Senate.
Lacson said the construction of the new Senate building in Taguig could start as early as the third quarter of 2018 and be finished by the third quarter of 2020.
Well, it’s about time for the Senate to have its own home.
The House of Representatives already owns the Batasan Complex, the 19-hectare Batasan property in Quezon City that has been its headquarters since 1986, since the bicameral legislature was restored after the Edsa People Power movement.
Meanwhile, the Senate has remained a tenant. Lacson said the Senate, which has been renting its building from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and its parking lot from the Social Security System (SSS) in Pasay City, has paid rental fees of P2.24 billion in the last 20 years or since its transfer from the Old Congress Building in 1996. He rightly argues that the cost of the Senate’s lease payments alone could have paid for its own building.
There have been many efforts to relocate the Senate in the past. There was a proposal for the Senate to construct its own structure inside the sprawling Batasan Pambansa Complex, which was broached prior to the Senate’s transfer to the GSIS Building. The Senate and the House together in one complex would have made the work of the legislature easier owing to the proximity of both Houses of Congress to each other. Nothing came out of the proposal.
Once, the Senate was looking to transfer to the Manila Film Center inside the Cultural Center of the Philippines, which is very near its GSIS facility. But the structural integrity of the Film Center was questioned by government engineers who inspected it. The cost of fixing the defects was said to be too substantial. It was also deemed too small for the Senate session hall and offices alone, so another building had to be constructed to accommodate all the space requirements, which again would be expensive. Senate employees were also simply afraid to transfer there, as the Film Center is said to be haunted by the ghosts of workers who were killed during the building’s construction in 1981.
There was also a proposal to transfer to the Manila Central Post Office in Lawton, Manila. The post office building could not only accommodate the Senate’s space requirements but it also has the historical and structural aesthetics suited for parliament. But this, too, did not push through, perhaps because the postal building still houses the country’s main mail sorting, distribution and other operations.
There have been other sites proposed, including an area inside the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, moving back to the Old Congress property, a vacant lot in Antipolo City and, of course, this BGC property, which majority of the senators have agreed on.
“It is about time that we turn this long-standing dream into reality. If we do not take action now, I am afraid that there will only be talks and talks, again and again, about this matter in the future till kingdom come. And I tell you, it will be a never-ending comic cycle,” Lacson said.
True. Here’s hoping the senators can make this “17-year-old idea” of finding a permanent home for the 101-year-old Senate of the Philippines a reality.
The so-called Upper House of Congress deserves its own home, one that could suitably represent its identity, tradition, stability and authority.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano