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MANILA, Philippines – It’s not a “mansion” or a “villa” but an ordinary house. This is as far as Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Alan Purisima is concerned.
In a press conference on Thursday, October 2, the PNP chief showed photos of his controversial house and lot in San Leonardo, Nueva Ecija. (READ: PNP chief: Nueva Ecija property no ‘mansion, villa’)
The property is the subject of a graft and plunder complaint against him and a series of media reports alleging the property was under-declared in his 2013 Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN).
Purisima insisted there was nothing anomalous about the property and that it was something that he and his family built and invested in through the years.
The house has an area of 204 square meters including the attic, said Purisima. The house itself has a market value of P818,260 (*$18,269) but appreciated through the years to P2,337,900 (*$52,199), according to him.
It sits in a 4.7-hectare property.
“Diyan pa lang po, makikita na malayong malayo maging mansion o villa ang aking bahay (On that account alone you’ll see that my house is not a mansion or a villa.”
– PNP chief Dir Gen Alan Purisima on his Nueva Ecija ‘home’
“May isa po kaming parang gazebo, luma na po iyan at nipa lang ang gawa. Panay poste lang po ang nasa ilalim ng bubong na tinutukoy. Ang assessed value po niyan ayon sa assessor’s office ng Nueva Ecija ay P17,890 lamang (There’s a gazebo that’s old and made from nipa. It’s just posts and a roof. Its assessed value is $400).”
“Isa pang bubong na walang laman sa ilalim ay ang garahe. Ang assessed value ay P52,630 lamang (Another structure is the garage. It has an assessed value of $1,174.71.)”
“Ang swimming pool po naman na (The swimming pool that’s supposedly) Olympic size daw ay 7.5 meters by 15 lamang (only). This is not even 10% of the size of an Olympic swimming pool which is at 50 meters by 215 meters.”
Purisima said the aerial shots of the Nueva Ecija property – the only images of his home available to the public then – were “unfair.”
“Ang masama po sa aerial shot, mga kaibigan, ay hindi niyo makikita ang totoong nasa ibaba. Iyan po ang isa pang pagkakamali ng nagpresenta ng property ko. Ang dami daw structures komo nakita nga sa aerial shot na maraming bubong,” he said.
(The bad thing about aerial shots is that you don’t see what’s really under the roofs. That’s a wrong way to present my property. The reports said several structures were seen but those were aerial shots of roofs.)
Based on his SALN, the property has a real market value of P3.7 million, but the complainants of the plunder raps against him insist it is worth much more.
As PNP chief, Purisima said he earns around P107,000 ($2,380) monthly.
Purisima told a Senate panel led by Senator Grace Poe on Tuesday, September 30, that the 4.7-hectare property was acquired in 1998 for P150,000 but was only developed in 2002. The police chief, who graduated from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) in 1981, had been in the PNP for more than a decade by then.
At the time he purchased the lot, he was chief of the regional intelligence and investigation division of the National Capital Region Police Office and then the operations officer of the Quezon City Police District.
By 2002, when he started building the Nueva Ecija house, Purisima was head of the Luzon Task Group and Luzon Area Office of the PNP, and then chief of the Police Anti-Crime and Emergency Response.
Almost a decade after he bought the property, Purisima was assigned police director of Central Luzon (Region 3, which includes the province of Nueva Ecija).
Despite calls for him to step down or take a leave, Purisima has refused. President Benigno Aquino III has been one of his staunchest defenders. – Rappler.com
*$1 = P44.8
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