BCDA expects to raise P45B from assets offering

State-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority expects to generate at least P45 billion through the planned offering of idle state assets to the private sector for development.

In a briefing Tuesday, BCDA president and chief executive officer Arnel Paciano D. Casanova said about P35 billion of the projected proceeds would come from the sale of two major assets in the Fort Bonifacio complex—the 33.1-hectare Bonifacio South property and a 25-ha land, which is still contested.

The remaining P10 billion represented the estimated initial amount BCDA expects to rake in from offering other idle assets to the private sector. This, Casanova said, could be higher.

Casanova said BCDA was set to revalidate next year the master plan for these assets to identify and “unlock the value” of all unused assets.

“All our economic zones are covered. We’re going to identify which of the areas are not generating the revenues that are we are expecting. We want to optimize the use of these assets and we will offer them to the private sector for development in partnership with the BCDA,” Casanova said.

“The overall vision is to unlock the values of all these assets so that BCDA could really serve as a catalyst for development in every region,” he added.

Among the areas he identified to have idle assets were the Clark Ecozone, Poro Point, John Hay Special Economic Zone and the Bataan Technopark. The plan was to make these areas key growth centers in their respective regions.

It was estimated that about 30,000 hectares of state property, including those within certain ecozones, remained idle, Casanova said.

The BCDA chief further said that the plan was to create a single master plan integrating all development plans of concerned local government units along the Subic-Clark corridor.

The BCDA has reconfigured its subsidiary, BCDA Management Holdings Inc. (BMHI), with an end in view of putting together a pool of experts and consultants vital to the fulfillment of its mandate to transform former baselands and other specific government properties into key growth centers.

“The BCDA, through the BMHI, can provide the technical expertise to assist the LGUs in drawing comprehensive land use plans,” Casanova said.

He said it was high time that all concerned LGUs planned as one in designing their master plans.

“This will result in a more productive co-existence between neighboring LGUs and the Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone, which includes the Clark International Airport,” Casanova said.

He said that an integrated land use plan would ensure that the LGUs would complement one another in the execution of their respective projects, instead of competing with each other.

In a related development, the BCDA said it had remitted P2.137 billion to the National Treasury for the AFP Modernization Fund in the first 11 months of the year.

Casanova said the share of the AFP Modernization Fund came from the net proceeds of nonsale transactions such as lease and joint-venture agreements involving Metro Manila military camps, the two biggest of which are the former Fort Bonifacio and a portion of the Villamor Air Base.

Portion of the Fort Bonifacio complex was transformed into the Bonifacio Global City, while portion of Villamor now hosts the Newport City.

Under Executive Order 309, the AFP gets 50 percent of the net proceeds from nonsale transactions.

Casanova said the BCDA was set to remit some P323 million before the end of the year.

He added that the agency had generated P52.816 billion from the disposal of Metro Manila camps from the period May 1993 to November 2011 and had remitted P33.306 billion to the National Treasury out of the proceeds from both sale and non-sale transactions.