DND confirms plan to privatize portion of Camp Aguinaldo

MANILA, Philippines - Defense and military officials confirmed yesterday that talks are  underway for the development of a master plan to privatize  a portion of the 150-hectare Camp  Aguinaldo, the main military headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The plan which is being spearheaded by the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) is currently under study, Defense spokesman Dr. Peter Paul Galvez said.

“There are plans like that under study. That’s one of the options,” Galvez in reference to BCDA president and chief executive officer Arnel Paciano Casanova’s  declaration that it has secured funding worth P120 million to be used for the crafting of a masterplan for the privatization of parts of the main military camp.

The plan to privatize a portion of Camp Aguinaldo came up following some suggestions by defense and military leaders last year for the government to just build a Pentagon-like facility wherein the defense department, the AFP headquarters and that of the other three major services – the Philippine Army, the Philippine Air Force (PAF) and the Philippine  Navy (PN), will all be relocated to save space.

Talks of building a Pentagon-like structure to house the defense and the military establishments was part of the continuing government plan to raise much-needed fund to hasten the modernization program of the military by privatizing military camps.

Created in 1992 under the late President Corazon Aquino, BCDA is mandated by to law transform former United States (US) military bases, and sprawling AFP camps across the country, into alternative productive civilian use.

Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala, AFP Public Affairs Office (PAO) chief, said plans to privatize portions of the main military headquarters, have yet to reach level of the military.

“It’s still at the DND level. It’s not with us yet,” Zagala said, also confirming the BCDA’s development plan at Camp Aguinaldo and other military camps.

Casanova told reporters the BCDA has already secured funding to be used for coming up with a master plan for the privatization of a portion of Camp Aguinaldo, adding that they are discussing this matter up with the DND and the AFP.

BCDA is helping the DND and the AFP in securing the survey and title for the lands as well as preparing the master plan to be able to get the best utilization of the military camps.

“We need to look at all military camps in the Philippines and based on the strategic national security plan of our AFP, we need to see which camps are they going to retain, where we need to invest infrastructures in the long-term and which ones are the camps they don’t need anymore so we could utilize these camps into revenue-generating project that would also provide funding for modernization,” Casanova said.