Unsigned deed delays martial law museum – UP

MANILA, Philippines — Delays in the construction of a martial law museum on the University of the Philippines campus are caused by a pending deed of transfer of possession, UP vice president for planning and development Dan Peckley said yesterday.

Peckley said the Human Rights Violation Victims Memorial Commission (HRVVMC) has not yet signed the document.

The HRVVMC earlier blamed the UP bureaucracy for the delayed launching of the martial law museum.

“I cannot explain their seeming foot-dragging,” HRVVMC executive director Carmelo Victor Crisanto told the House appointments committee during a budget hearing on Tuesday.

In a 2018 agreement, UP donated a 1.4-hectare lot to the HRVVMC for the Freedom Memorial Museum.

The HRVVMC funded an P80-million relocation facility for UP offices that would be affected by the museum’s construction.

The relocation site’s construction was finished in October 2022.

Crisanto has said that the relocation of UP offices was delayed by an unsigned turnover document.

UP president Angelo Jimenez said he called an emergency meeting this week to discuss the museum’s construction.

The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos signed the martial law proclamation on Sept. 21, 1972.