Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. on Tuesday rejected anew the proposal to auction off the Philippine properties in Japan “for any reason” and instead suggested that properties of the Department of Health should be the ones be sold for its “lousy response” to coronavirus pandemic.
“I will never agree to the sale of our properties in Japan for any reason. Sell the properties of the departments of budget, treasury, health above all for its lousy response to COVID,” Locsin said, in a Twitter post. “Sell the properties of our line departments. Many idles ones.”
In a latest post, Locsin suggested: “To raise funds to fight Covid, don’t sell Japan properties. Sell corrupt and incompetent health officials in the slave markets of South Africa. Although nearly worthless if we sell them all we’ll raise a bit. I think. Sell the authors of the bill.”
In particular, Locsin proposed that the San Lazaro Hospital and Research Institute for Tropical Medicine be sold instead and “rob PhilHealth some more instead” to fund the programs of the DOH.
“I don’t mean the secretaries. The properties are idle. Imagine selling our Japan properties to fund the programs of DOH? Rob PhilHealth some more instead. They’re good at that. Sell San Lazaro. Sell RITM,” he said.
Earlier, the Department of Foreign Affairs rejected any proposal to sell the Philippines’ four real estate properties in Japan that the country acquired as part of World War II reparations.
The DFA has sent a position paper to Congress repudiating the sale even as he revealed of another bid to have the country’s real properties in Japan to auction, a move that Locsin likened to World War II attack perpetrated by Filipinos.
“There is another plot to dispose of 4 of our Japan properties,” Locsin tweeted earlier.
“This is a second Pearl Harbor perpetrated by Filipinos on our own patrimony,” he said.
The DFA chief suspected that huge kickbacks may have driven those behind the sale in the guise of invoking the plight of war veterans to justify the push to dispose of the properties.
“Dollar patriotism. Not while I am alive. Kaching, kaching. Disgusting!!!” Locsin said.
The country’s top diplomat noted that “the plight of our poor veterans, so few of them left, have been invoked by every gang of officials who’ve run through the budgets of their own agencies.”
“There are other ways to help Veterans – BCDA was sold for them but proceeds were stolen. We already sent our position to Congress opposing it,” he tweeted.
“I will fight this to their end. Shet before I go down in ignominy as the guy who sold our Japan properties,” Locsin vowed.
According to Locsin, efforts to sell the Japan properties “usually happens toward the end of a term. Retirement fund of last resort.”
The Philippine government acquired the four properties in Tokyo and Kobe under the war reparation agreement with Japan on May 9, 1956.
Of the four properties, the Roppongi property in Tokyo is considered one of the most expensive piece of real estate in the Japanese capital.
There were several attempts in the past to auction off the 3,179 square-meter Philippine property on 306 Roppongi St. 5-Chome Minato-ku, Tokyo either by sale or long-term lease.