Senate President Vicente Sotto III has opposed the government's plan to sell Philippine assets in Japan to raise funds for the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).
(Senate of the Philippines / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
Sotto said the government could opt to sell other properties instead of those in Japan as President Duterte had sugggested.
"It's impractical to sell those. They are symbols of our diplomatic ties with Japan. Besides, there are many other government properties in the Philippines that we can sell instead," Sotto said.
In a public address Monday, Duterte suggested the sale of Philippine properties in Japan to augment the funds of the PhilHealth and prevent it from going bankrupt.
But Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin disagreed with the move, saying the "idle" properties of government departments should be sold instead.
"I will never agree to the sale of our properties in Japan for any reason. Sell the properties of the department of budget, teasry, health, above all for its lousy response to COVID," Locsin tweeted later.
The Philippines has four properties in Tokyo and Kobe as part of the reparations agreement it forged with Japan in 1956.
In a 1990 ruling, the Supreme Court said these were "properties and the capital goods and services procured from the Japanese government for national development projects are part of the indemnification to the Filipino people for their losses in life and property and their suffering during World War II." Selling them would require legislation from Congress.
Other lawmakers stressed that the properties in Japan, as the Supreme Court ruled, belonged to the State and have a symbolic value to Filipino war veterans and civilians.