Press groups oppose plan to turn PIA-CAR office into guest house

Press groups said the Lualhati Guest House has become a center for training, workshops and fellowship.

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -- Local journalists are opposed to a government plant to turn the Lualhati Guest House, now being used by the Philippine Information Agency, into a cottage for the executive secretary.

 

The Office of the President’s Finance and Administration Office wrote PIA Director General Harold Clavite in May asking PIA-CAR to turnover the property to the OP’s Asset Management Office for renovation and conversion.

 

Deputy Executive Secretary Rizalina Justol said the executive secretary, who is tasked with assisting the president in running the executive branch, could easily access the Baguio Mansion House from the Lualhati Guest House.

 

“It will also be used as venue for meetings, fora and other official functions,” Justol added in her letter.

 

Justol claimed that the OP-Property Inventory Team inspected the building in March and found that it “is already weak and dilapidated and needs major renovation or improvement and refurbishment.”

 

Media organizations in the city, including the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines-Baguio Benguet, Baguio Correspondents and Broadcasters Club and the National Correspondents Club of Baguio, oppose the move.

 

NUJP-Baguio Benguet chapter chairman Kimberly Quitasol said PIA-CAR has been using the building since 2005.

 

Quitasol said the building, which, she said is not dilapidated, has since then been a center for media training, seminars, meetings, caucuses, conferences and assemblies, or get togethers.

 

“For all its historical significance and usefulness to the local journalism and to the public, (we) plead with the Office of the President to retain the former Lualhati Cottage as the PIA’s hub.”

 

The BCBC, in a resolution, also urged Duterte to preserve the building because it has “established a sense of community among local officials and the media community, both local and national.” 

 

The building, Jane Cadalig, president of BCBC said, “has sheltered for free journalists from Manila and the lowlands, particularly the Malacañang Press Corps, during presidential coverages here or other events held in Baguio.”

 

The NCCB, headed by veteran journalist and former Baguio councilor Nars Padilla, meanwhile issued a manifesto asking the government to keep things as they are.