Senate prepares to stop Charter change

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—The Senate is getting ready for a second round of debates with the House of Representatives over Charter change, this time to save the country from “land-grabbing” foreigners.

According to Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, who led a Senate inquiry into Baguio’s urban decay here on Friday, this was a sociopolitical trend where “rich nations succeed in controlling less-developed countries by buying up their land.”

The countries vulnerable to this practice are in Africa, South America and Asia, “and the Philippines is on their list,” he said.

Biazon spent time here looking into the increase in the number of Koreans operating businesses here.

The inquiry was conducted on behalf of Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who filed Senate Resolution 1150 citing “the invasion of Korean business establishments and the ubiquitous presence of Korean nationals in the streets, places of entertainment, parks and in leased dwellings or buildings,” as signs of urban decay in the city.

Biazon said the Senate wants to validate suspicions that advocates of Charter change may also be under pressure from foreign capitalists interested in real estate.

“I vow to stop it,” he said.

“It is Speaker Prospero Nograles himself who says he wants to change the Constitution to allow foreigners to own our lands,” Biazon said. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon

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