To many Gen-X’ers, Nayong Pilipino has always meant endless school excursions and lunch with a mini-Mayon Volcano at our backs, or a quick bite of a sandwich in a nipa hut by a small version of the Banaue Rice Terraces.
Which probably explains the current affinity of many netizens to the Nayong Pilipino Foundation (NPF) board, which is blocking government’s plans to turn a portion of its 15-hectare property into a mega-vaccination facility with drive-through services.
But that Nayong Pilipino park of our collective memories, is long gone—the space across the Manila international airport has been taken over to extend the latter’s runway. The miniature tourist sites have been transferred to the Clark Freeport in Pampanga, and Nayon has not been operating even before the Covid-19 pandemic. (Former First Lady Imelda Marcos was said to have been inspired to set up Nayong Pilipino after former First Lady of Indonesia Siti Suharto took her to the Taman Mini Park in Jakarta.)
The Nayong Pilipino of today is basically a barren piece of reclaimed land within the Pagcor Entertainment City, with overgrown weeds, tall grass (talahib) and a smattering of ipil-ipil shrubs. “But definitely it’s not a forest,” said one former Nayong Pilipino board member under President Benigno Aquino’s term.
No projects to speak of
There had been plans to build a nature park, a cultural haven, even. But in all this time, not much earth has been moved to create any of these. Instead, separate boards had contracts with two separate developers for casinos and a hotel, hoping the lease payments would eventually fund the park’s development.
It should come as no surprise then that the Commission on Audit (COA) had proposed the abolition of the NPF for failing its mandate under the Marcos-era President Decree No. 37, as well as its inadequate financial controls and duplication of functions with other government agencies.
“The Audit Team deemed that it would be advantageous to the government if NPF would be dissolved/abolished or merged and its resources would be transferred to other government agencies with established internal controls and sufficient manpower capable of protecting or safeguarding the resources for the benefit of the public,” said a COA report dated July 2020.
Fund depletion observed
As NPF duplicated or overlapped functions with the National Parks Development Committee (NPDC), COA recommended a possible merger. Also an attached agency of the Department of Tourism, NPDC’s “vision and one of its mandates is to be the lead agency that will provide fully developed and well-maintained parks for the Filipino’s wholesome recreation.”
The COA report said the NPF basically had no projects to show for, and yet depleted its funds from P1.232 billion in CY 2014 to P784.762 million as of December 31, 2019. It also found the NPF did not have or “[lacked] an established internal control system in monitoring financial transactions thereby exposing NPF funds and resources to losses and wastage.”
COA noted even the Governance Commission for Government-owned and Controlled Corporations has been giving a “failing grade” to the NPF because it had no projects.
The foundation was unable to submit financial statements from 2017 to 2019 and no pertinent documents have been submitted to support financial transactions totaling P461.762 million, in the form of deposits, withdrawals from banks, payments to suppliers of purchases and repairs, travel allowances and cash advances “casting doubt on the legality, propriety and reasonableness of these transactions.”
Also, auditors said NPF failed to remit value added tax amounting to some P19.13 million to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), and did not withhold taxes i.e. VAT, Other Percentage Taxes (OPT) and Income Tax on various payments to suppliers contrary, “thereby exposing NPF to possible tax related suit and surcharges and interests.”
Lastly, “NPF did not collect the estimated VAT in the amount of P120 million corresponding to 12 percent of the P1 billion advance rental from Resorts World Bayshore City Inc. (RWBCI), hence, no VAT was remitted to the BIR; instead NPF collected VAT from RWBCI monthly, equivalent to the VAT of the monthly lease rental. Likewise, no Official Receipt (OR) was issued for the collection of the P1 billion advance rental, rather the OR is issued monthly to RWBCI, equivalent to the monthly lease rental, despite the actual amount collected is for the VAT only.”
1 comment
Wow, this author has ben writing about OLD information re the junked old NPF BOT, clearly to confuse the public, the same way that Razon does.
Arnaldo, you have no past tense?