From crown jewel, Bongbong’s bachelor pad now looks like Marawi ruins

It used to be the crown jewel within a gated compound at the secluded end of Roxas Boulevard, right by the sea.

Now the bachelor’s pad of Bongbong Marcos in Parañaque’s Villamar Court looks like the bombed ruins of Marawi.

Three decades since the EDSA 1 revolt and a reclamation that pushed back the sea, the Marcos property not only has been looted and left to the elements, it has become a haven of unsavory characters, to the horror of Villamar residents. Villamar Court in the 1960s and 1970s was home to the glamorous Revilla sisters and beauty doctor Vicki Belo, among others, when that seaside stretch of Parañaque and Pasay was the Philippine equivalent of California’s Malibu Beach.

Back entrance

The Marcos house was dubbed the Bongbong pad since the late president’s son, then in his early 20s, had occasionally been sighted in the compound in the company of young ladies, none of whom looked like the homely Lisa Araneta.

The Revilla clan has since fled to the safer confines of Makati, and so did Belo, although the celebrated dermatologist still uses the old house, the immediate neighbor to the Marcos ruins, as backroom office for her cosmetics business.

To prevent akyat-bahay gang and other dangerous elements from going through the gated enclave, the Villamar Court homeowners association then headed by Belo’s father, lawyer Enrique Belo, had to fence off the Marcos property.

But the Presidential Commission on Good Government, which sequestered the Marcos house but never posted any guards to secure the property, resented the wall and, in retaliation, refused to pay the association dues.

Besides the Bongbong pad, the Marcoses incidentally owned another adjoining property also within Villamar, also similarly sequestered.

Altogether, the two Marcos properties have a combined land area of 3,269 square meters, which at P60,000/sqm present zonal valuation, is worth P196 million, a hefty sum even in these P54-$1 days.

Even better, the two Marcos lots have acquired great commercial potential since they adjoin the Coastal Road, right after the exit coming from Cavite, making the combined properties with their wide frontage ripe for redevelopment.

Given such potential windfall, the homeowners association is hoping that the PCGG would even partially pay the P20 million in monthly dues that have piled up since 1986.

At one point, the association had considered filing a collection case but decided against it, hoping somehow, given the reformist rhetoric of then PCGG head Andres Bautista, that the sense of good neighborly relations would finally prevail on the agency.

Bautista has since then famously come and gone. With another set of low-key replacements from the Duterte administration now posted at PCGG, even that hope was apparently too much. Heard through the grapevine

If you want to cut through the media spin and see which group is actually in control of The Medical City, its updated website should give you the answer.

E-mail: moneygoround.manila@yahoo.com