AFP Museum in danger of shutting down due to unpaid bills

MANILA, Philippines - The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Museum is in danger of shutting down as it can no longer pay for its electricity dues which has exceeded P1 million.

AFP Museum administrator Elizabeth Dapiton said the military would not shoulder their power bills since they are merely considered as a tenant in Camp Aguinaldo. She said the AFP Museum has to settle P1.37 million in electricity dues.

“I received a disconnection notice. Supposed to be, the first one was on January 25. It stated that the date of disconnection is on January 29. On January 27, I received another communication from the AFP but this time, it’s a notice of disconnection but the tone of the letter is a demand letter,” Dapiton said in an interview on Monday.

She said the letter gave the AFP Museum five working days to pay the unpaid electricty bill worth more than P1.3 million. The letter reportedly threatened to disconnect the AFP Museum’s electricity connection if the power bills are not paid.

The AFP Museum displays thousands of military items from the pre-colonial period to the Zamboanga crisis in 2013. It is located along Capinpin Avenue inside Camp Aguinaldo adjacent to the AFP Grandstand and the Defense Press Corps office.

Dapiton claimed that when the museum started in 1996, there was a verbal agreement that the AFP would subsidize its expenses on utilities.

She said the AFP Museum is under a private foundation, the Armed Forces of the Philippines Museum and Historical Library Foundation Inc. This means that the museum is not part of the military organization.

“They know from the start that this is a non-profit, non-stock foundation. We do not have means to pay for utilities,” Dapiton said.

The AFP Museum spends around P40,000 to P50,000 a month for electricity, according to Dapiton. She said the AFP started billing the museum since November 2013.

“We really cannot pay because once we pay, we will only depend on the dividend income that we get from our capital, endowment fund. The cash donations are geared for specific projects,” the AFP Museum administrator said. 

Dapiton said they museum would have no choice but to get the salaries of employees from its dividend income, which she described as “meager.” She said that while visitors are asked to pay an entrance fee worth P20, the amount is not enough to sustain their operations.

“We are still grateful to AFP because if they started billing us a long long time ago, we would have shut down the museum,” Dapiton said.

“We do not what will happen. We’re praying. As to what will happen, as to our fate, we don’t know. We are left hanging. We don’t know if we will still  accept visitors if we lose our electricity connection,” she added.