2 US soldiers, RP Marine killed in Sulu bombing

09/30/2009 MALAYA

BY VICTOR REYES

TWO American servicemen and a Philippine Marine were killed and two other Filipino soldiers were wounded yesterday morning in a roadside bombing in front of a military detachment in Indanan town, Sulu.

Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., AFP public affairs office chief, said the Americans, who were members of the US Seabees, were to supervise the construction of the five-kilometer Kagay road in Indanan.

"It was an EID attack or improvised explosive device attack," he said.

"These US servicemen, from the data we gathered, were non-combatants," said Brawner.

He said the soldiers, who were on board a US Humvee and escorted by Philippine Marines, were on a re-supply mission.

The US servicemen were the first two casualties of the US armed forces in Mindanao since October 2002 when a military training facility in Malagutay, Zamboanga City was bombed by suspected Abu Sayyaf terrorists, resulting in the deaths of a US soldier and several Filipinos.

Early this month, a pillbox exploded at Jolo town pier in Sulu while US troops were unloading supplies from a watercraft. No one was killed or injured but the US troops and their Marine escorts fired warning shots.

Brawner said they still have no information as to the identities of the suspect or suspects but he noted that members of the Abu Sayyaf operate in the area.

Brawner said the military believes that the US-assisted projects in the area would not be affected by the incident. "We believe that the projects will still go on," he said.

He said the US soldiers have completed similar construction projects in Indanan such as the Barangay Kagay Medical Clinic, Barangay Buansa Elementary School, Barangay Buansa road, the Barangay Bato-bato road, Barangay Kagay Elementary School.

The US embassy in Manila, in a statement, confirmed the death of two servicemen but withheld their identities pending notification of their kin.

"They lost their lives serving others, and we will always be grateful for their contributions to improve the quality of life on Jolo," US Ambassador Kristie Kenney said in a statement.

Sen. Francis Escudero said the deaths of the two US soldiers emphasize the need to renegotiate the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement and the presence of American troops in Mindanao.

"Now is the time to renegotiate the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement to clarify the US role and presence in Mindanao and to correct the onerous provisions of the treaty," he said.

"In a situation where American troops are embedded in our own military, casualties are inevitable in a war of attrition," he said.

"It is my hope that this incident will not lead to direct US involvement in combat operations," he said.

Senators had adopted on second reading a resolution filed by Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, calling for the renegotiation or outright abrogation of the VFA.

Escudero said the Arroyo government should explain to the people the actual benefits on the presence of American troops in Mindanao before it starts renegotiating the VFA with the US.

"The US military presence in Mindanao is aimed at protecting America’s strategic interests. Let us not fool ourselves into believing that they are there for us," he said. – With JP Lopez

Gloria Arroyo admits government can't cope with disaster

GMA admits gov’t can’t cope with disaster

Daily Tribune 09/29/2009

With the death toll rising to 140 and still counting, along with still too many residents in flood stricken areas remaining unrescued, shivering, wet and hungry, with relief goods yet to reach them, the Arroyo government yesterday admitted that it is unable to cope adequately with Saturday’s disaster, as victims were crammed into makeshift evacuation centers without clean water or medicine, looters roamed and some people remained completely stranded.

Overwhelmed rescue workers battled waist-deep waters and a dire lack of resources in a desperate effort to help nearly half a million flood survivors, as the death toll hit 140, according to official estimates, seen to be on the ultra-conservative side, since local government executives in just their areas have been reporting bigger numbers of deaths.

It is widely expected that the death toll would climb, as local government officials said there were dozens of deaths that were not included in the government’s figures.

The international community also rushed aid, where at least scores were killed and nearly half a million displaced by freak floods.

US Navy commando teams fanned out across the flooded section of eastern Manila and rescued some 52 marooned residents, including one woman in labor, as well as elderly residents and children.

The United States, China, Japan, Singapore and United Nations agencies also raised funds for relief work and to get the capital’s broken health infrastructure working again.

Washington sent $50,000 for the relief efforts, China pitched in $10,000, while Singapore raised $30,000 and a further $20,000 in seed money to jumpstart a donations drive by the Red Cross.

Tokyo, meanwhile, said it would send $220,000 worth of relief goods to the Philippines, where rescue and emergency workers and the health infrastructure have been overwhelmed by the flooding.

In a letter to the Philippines, Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuyo Okada expressed his "heartfelt sympathy" for the loss of life and serious damage to infrastructure in Metro Manila and other regions.

"I was deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and destruction to property caused by the storm that swept through the central Philippines over weekend," added Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) meanwhile said those crammed into evacuation centers were at risk of water- and air-borne diseases.

"There is also a greater risk of acute respiratory infection and injuries, (and) wound infection from doing repairs after the floods," the agency said as it announced a 42,000-dollar relief fund.

"Healthcare management is also a priority," it said, while noting that public and private hospitals were flooded and many have become inaccessible.

"Many hospital staff were not able to report for work because of the impact of the floods on their own families and homes," the WHO said.

Meanwhile, humanitarian agency World Vision said it had begun distributing relief packs by helicopter and was assisting the Philippine coastguard.

It said it planned to raise about two million dollars and was appealing for more funds from its donors.

"We are concentrating on massive relief operations. (But) the system is overwhelmed, local government units are overwhelmed," the head of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, Anthony Golez, told reporters.

"Our assets and people are spread too thinly."

The nine-hour deluge left some areas of Metro Manila, a city of 12 million people, under 20 feet of water, with poor drainage systems and other failed infrastructure exacerbating the problem.

Eighty percent of the city was submerged and, with parts of Manila remaining waist-deep in water on Monday, local television reported that some people had spent more than 48 hours stranded on the upper floors or roofs of their homes.

Other areas where flooding had subsided also remained covered in knee-deep sludge.

Adding to the chaos, telephone and power services in some parts of the city were still cut, while local government officials said survivors in makeshift evacuation camps were desperately short of food, water and clothes.

At one open-air gymnasium in eastern Manila, 3,000 people were sheltering in hot and humid conditions alongside the bodies of 11 neighbors lying in coffins.

There was no running water, and human feces lay only a few feet from where people were sleeping on the concrete floor.

In a wealthier part of Manila that was also swamped by the floods, residents raced against looters to retrieve televisions and other valuables, with hardly any sign of police to stop the crime.

Nearby, gangs of men pushing wooden carts went into abandoned homes and emerged with muddied electric fans and television sets.

Health authorities also warned of disease outbreaks and made appeals to the public for donations of medicine, clean water and food, as well as for medics to volunteer their services.

Official reports from the NDCC said that as of yesterday afternoon, 56 deaths were confirmed in Region IV-A or the Calabarzon, 36 in Region III; seven in Metro Manila; and one in Cordillera Administrative Region.

The agency also reported that 32 remain missing and five were injured.

Unconfirmed reports, however, indicated that in Marikina alone about 50 to 70 people have died but the NDCC official count listed only one death only.

The Rizal provincial disaster coordinating council also said they have recorded 84 deaths in the province already but the NDCC official tally mentioned of only about 40 deaths in the province.

PO3 Joshua Brizuela, information officer of the Rizal PDCC, said their record indicated that 21 were injured and 49 others were missing in Rizal. He said they recorded 25 deaths in Tanay town, 13 in Antipolo, 12 in Angono, five in Baras, 10 in Rodriguez, four in Morong, 10 in San Mateo, two in Teresa and one each for Taytay and Cainta.

When asked for the other casualties not reflected in the NDCC tally, Defense secretary and concurrent NDCC chairman Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said: "Some are not tallied because their death has still no certification so we cannot really tally."

Teodoro admitted the NDCC casualty count is expected to go higher, noting that Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno has confirmed 17 deaths in Antipolo alone. The NDCC casualty count did not list any fatality in Antipolo.

As of yesterday, the NDCC also said 89,953 families or 451,683 persons in Region 1, NCR, Region III, Region IV-A, Region IV-B, Region V, Region IX, Region XII, and CAR. Of the figure, 23,147 families or 115,990 persons are in 205 evacuation centers

Teodoro also said the focus now is to conduct massive relief operations for nearly 500,000 people who have been affected by tropical storm Ondoy which battered Metro Manila and adjacent provinces with continuous heavy rains since Friday night

"The general concentration of the NDCC (National Disaster Coordinating Council) is to bring food to the relief centers. "Relief, relief, relief, that is the challenge. Its going to massive," said Teodoro.

Teodoro said the Department of Social Welfare and Development, one of the attached agency of the council, has already set aside P20 million for the relief operations.

"There is going to be probably more needed," said Teodoro, adding that a team had been dispatched yesterday to conduct to assess the effect of Ondoy.

In Metro Manila, Teodoro said the NDCC is providing direct assistance, on top of the assistance being provided by local government units. In the provinces, he said the NDCC is "helping out as much as we can."

On whether the relief operations is the biggest that they are conducting, "The largest that I experienced (as NDCC chair). I do not know before, I think there are bigger (relief operations) like typhoon Yoling," he said, while noting typhoon Yoling that pounded Luzon in 1972.

Teodoro said some residents in areas that are still flooded would not leave their homes gbut now the challenge is to get food especially because they don’t want to leave the areas where they stay.

"We’ll just try to divide our resources as judiciously as possible. We have really to man the evacuation centers and the relief centers that the local governments will establish but beyond that, we will try our best, if possible, to service the people on the roof," he said.

"But the general concentration of the NDCC is to bring food to the relief center. Distribution is a local government duty but we will try to help out as we can," added Teodoro.

Some continue to plead though radio stations about the need to rescue people trapped in their residents.

To those who were not reached by rescue teams, Teodoro said: "We really feel their anger and pain but it is physically impossible to reach each and everyone with the conditions that we face."

He pointed out that the shift to relief operations does not mean that they are abandoning the rescue operations. "The concentration is relief. If there is anybody, for example, somewhere that needs to be rescued, we have to rescue the person," he said. Mario J. Mallari and AFP

The Wealth of the Arroyos

First of Three Parts
by Malou Mangahas

A FORTNIGHT ago in her ninth State of the Nation Address, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo fired sharp, staccato broadsides at her critics, and in a tone bold and boastful declared: “I am falsely accused, without proof, of using my position for personal profit.”
There isn’t a day,” she said, “I do not work at my job or a waking moment when I do not think through a work-related problem. Even my critics cannot begrudge the long hours I put in.”
“A president must be on the job 24/7, ready for any contingency, any crisis, anywhere, anytime,” Arroyo continued, because “the people deserve a government that works just as hard as they do.”
By all indications, President Arroyo has worked very hard. In fact, she has worked so hard that during her first years as president, official records show her declared wealth as growing faster, and by amounts much bigger, than the combined growth in the declared wealth of three presidents before her.
The late President Corazon C. Aquino’s declared net worth grew by only 4.8 percent from 1989 to 1992. By comparison, Fidel V. Ramos’s rose by 34.2 percent from 1992 to 1998, and Joseph ‘Erap’ Ejercito Estrada’s, by 7.2 percent from 1998 to1999.
PCIJ reports in 2000, though, revealed that the mansions and other assets held by Estrada and his mistresses were worth multiple times more than his declared net worth. Less than a year later, Arroyo came to power after a botched impeachment trial of Estrada for unexplained wealth triggered a people-power revolt.
Exponential growth
But the lessons of Estrada’s downfall seem to have been lost on Arroyo. In her eight years in office, Arroyo’s declared net worth more than doubled (pegged only on the book or acquisition value of her assets), from P66.8 million in 2001 to P143.54 million in 2008. The increase of P76.74 million represents a growth rate of 114 percent.
If her statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALNs) are plotted from 17 years ago when she first served as senator, Arroyo’s declared wealth charts an exponential growth of 2,000 percent.
Her net worth in 1992 was only P6.73 million; for eight years before the presidency, her wealth grew by a heftier P60.07 million or a rise of 890 percent.
Since she got into Malacanang in 2001, Arroyo added P10.97 million to her net worth year on year on average, or 20 times more than her lawful gross salary as president of only P45,000 a month.
If various allowances are thrown in, her monthly pay would total at most P100,000 or P1.2 million a year before tax. Yet even then, this represents only 10 percent of the P10.97-million average annual increase in Arroyo’s net worth since 2001.
Arroyo’s SALNs, however, offer few clues on how she raised the big difference, or whether she has other lawful sources of income. Since 2001, the president has apparently taken the path of token compliance instead of going for full disclosure in form and substance of her assets and liabilities, according to the Constitution and law. As a result, her SALNs in the last eight years have been remarkably full of gaps in data.
For sure, they pale in comparison to the detailed documentation that former Presidents Aquino and Ramos exemplified in their SALNs. Both Aquino and Ramos even attached to their SALNs photocopies of their income-tax returns (ITRs) and checks attesting to payments they made with the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Arroyo did not attach her ITRs.
Not a good example
At the very least, Arroyo’s SALNs may not pass as what should be expected from the chief executive, who ideally sets the example for all of the country’s 1.5 million civil servants.
Comments Karina Constantino-David, who worked as Civil Service Commission (CSC) chairperson under Arroyo: “When a high official like the president is unable to fulfill the responsibilities expected of her according to the constitution, how can she convince other public servants to take seriously the dictum ‘Public office is a public trust’?”
In recent years, token compliance with the law on filing SALNs had caused mayors, military officers, customs and revenue officials, and other civil servants of less senior status jail terms, stiff fines, and dismissal or suspension from work.
Failure to disclose properties in the name of his wife and children, for instance, earned Armed Forces general Carlos Garcia a two-year stint in jail.
While in the National Bilibid Prisons for murder and rape, former Calauan, Laguna Mayor Antonio Sanchez was also fined P5,000 per year for four years for what lawyers say passes for perjury by omission: defective compliance or non-compliance with the SALN law. More details

Scandals

Second in a series on President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's 9th State of the Nation Address
A guide to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's legacy: a yearly calendar of shock-and-awe stories that involve corruption in high places and weak leadership. Research by Lei Chavez, abs-cbnnews.com

2001

‘Payola’ for FG

Barely had President Arroyo warmed her seat when the first in a series of scandals involving the first family erupted. Correspondence secretary Veronica "Bing" Rodrigo accused first gentleman Mike Arroyo of taking a P50-million bribe in July 2001. The bribery was said to be for President Arroyo to recall her veto on two franchise bills. The first bill involved the Philippine Communication Clearinghouse which sought a franchise to operate a clearinghouse where telco firms were to interconnect for a certain fee. The second bill granted APC Wireless Interface Network a franchise to build a wireless telecommunication system nationwide.

The companies were allegedly owned by Jaime Dichavez, a close friend of former President Joseph Estrada, who allegedly used Pacifico Marcelo as his dummy. According to Rodrigo, a woman named Malou Nuñez from the office of the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office under Gabriel Claudio approached her, inquiring about the request to veto the bills.

Rodrigo is a friend of the president, having been classmates in grade school and high school. Their parents were close friends.

Marcelo alleged that President Arroyo called him to stop lobbying for the franchise and that the three of them—the First Couple and Marcelo—will establish their own company. Marcelo turned down the offer.

The president did not recall her veto of both bills. Arroyo also said that the First Gentleman never asked her to recall the veto. Her husband denied receiving any money and claimed that Rodrigo was the one who received the bribe. Rodrigo later retracted her allegations in the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing.

PCSO funds for admin candidates’ campaign

In October 2001, Roberto Rivero, former consultant of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes (PCSO), claimed that the first gentleman used almost $5 million of PCSO funds to finance the campaign of some senatorial candidates and to bribe radio commentators. President Arroyo asked the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate her husband. The PCSO denied Rivero's accusations. When asked by the Ombudsman for evidence, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who exposed this, was unable to present any.

Years later, in May 2007, another former PCSO senior executive, Cirilo Avila, said the funds were made to appear as payment for ad placements but were really used as People Power Coalition (PPC) campaign funds. Avila narrated that the PPC requested the funds and manager Ver Angelo took it up with the board. The request was approved.

Nani Perez’s ‘extortion’

Four days after assuming office, Arroyo awarded a $470-million contract to Argentine firm Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anonima (IMPSA) to rehabilitate a power plant in Laguna. A few months later, former Manila Representative Mark Jimenez, the man who brokered the deal, accused Justice Secretary Hernando Perez of extorting $2 million in exchange for a justice department opinion that favors the deal.

Jimenez told Senator Lacson that the entire amount was actually $14 million: Perez received $2 million, the National Power Corporation "boys" got $1 million, Malacañang was given $4, and $7 million went to Jimenez.

In April 2008, the office of the Ombudsman, headed by Merceditas Gutierrez, filed graft charges against Perez, his wife Rosario, Ernest Escaler, and Ramon Antonio Arceo Jr.

But the graft and robbery charges were junked by the Sandiganbayan in November 2008 as the Ombudsman failed to expedite the complaints, making Perez immune from the charges, indirectly acquitting Perez.

Perez’s pending case with the Sandiganbayan is on his falsification of public documents.

In May 2009, Perez filed his third petition asking the Sandiganbayan to dismiss the charges of unethical practices filed against him for allegedly not declaring $1.7 million in his 2001 Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) saying that Arroyo herself approved his SALN when she assumed office. Perez was then a member of her cabinet.

The godmother’s ties to the Pinedas

President Arroyo agreed to be the godmother of alleged jueteng boss Bong Pineda's son. In an interview with Time, she said that she sought advice from Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin who said, "The sins of the father are not the sins of the son."

Later events revealed the nature of Arroyo’s ties to the Pinedas. In 2005, during the height of the Senate probe on the “Hello Garci” scandal, Army Capt. Marlon Mendoza quoted Virgillio Garcillano and said Pineda gave P300 million to fund Arroyo’s presidential bid in 2004.

Another witness, Michaelangelo Zuce, nephew of Garcillano claimed that Pineda’s wife, Lilia Pineda, handed out envelopes containing P30,000 each in January 2004 during a party hosted by the president in her La Vista home in Quezon City.

Profit from anti-poverty bonds?

Conceptualized by the Caucus of Development (Code-NGO), the PEACe bonds (Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificates) were issued by the government supposedly to help raise funds for the anti-poverty activities of its member organizations. But there were allegations that Code-NGO used its political connections to profit P1.4 billion in a series of transactions from the PEACe bonds worth P35 billion pesos.

Code-NGO was chaired by Socorro Camacho-Reyes, sister of then Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho. Camacho-Reyes denied, in a Senate hearing, that her brother helped him.

Silencing the Marines

Rear Adm. Guillermo Wong, then Flag Officer in Command of the Philippine Navy, exposed irregularities in the Philippine Marines' procurement of equipment worth P3.8 million.

This did not sit well with Marine officials. Then Armed Forces chief of staff Angelo Reyes offered Wong another post, chief of the Northern Command, practically demoting him. This forced Wong to resign.

When asked to comment, President Arroyo said Reyes had done "the right thing." Fresh from retirement, Reyes was immediately appointed defense secretary.

A foul deal

In 2007, the Philippine National Construction Corporation (PNCC, formerly Construction Development Corporation of the Philippines or CDCP) and Radstock Securities signed a compromise agreement obliging the PNCC to pay Radstock P6.2 billion in the form of: 19 pieces of real estate properties; 20% of the outstanding capital stock of PNCC; and 50% of PNCC’s share in the gross toll revenue of the Manila North Tollways Corporation for 27 years.

Senators Sergio Osmena III and Franklin Drilon cried foul because it disposed of almost all the assets of PNCC, a company acquired by the government after President Marcos forced government financial institutions to exchange debt owed to them by the company for stocks.

The deal, they said, gave Marubeni/Radstock preferential treatment over other bigger creditors, particularly government. As of December 2002, the PNCC owed the government through the Assets Privatization Trust P41.39 billion, according to the Commission on Audit, and has pending liabilities amounting to P6.9 billion, a bulk of which was from the Philippine government.



2002

Overpriced Macapagal Boulevard

Sulpicio Tagud Jr., then board director of the Public Estates Authority (PEA), exposed the P600-million overprice of the construction of the GSIS-funded 5.1-kilometer President Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard in the Manila Bay reclamation area. The contracts were approved during the Estrada administration and were given to three companies: Shoemart Inc., DM Wenceslao, and Jesusito D. Legaspi Construction (JDLC).

A series of supplemental contracts with JDLC were later approved by the PEA board under the Arroyo administration that increased the original approved cost of their section of the highway. According to Tagud, while the SM group of companies constructed its part of the boulevard at P54,000 per lineal meter, JDLC built its section at P302,000 per lineal meter.

Arroyo asked PEA and the Government Service Insurance System officials to submit a full report on the project to Presidential Legal Counsel Avelino Cruz. After the the report was submitted, Arroyo asked the entire PEA board to go on leave until the Presidential Anti-graft Commission submitted the results of its investigation.

In February 2008, the Sandiganbayan said it will continue the probe on JDLC despite the firm’s motion to dismiss the alleged overpricing of the boulevard.

The garbage contract

The Jancom controversy involved a $360-million (P18 billion) incineration project in which the Jancom Environment Corp. (JEC) would burn 3,000 tons of Metro Manila garbage a day for a tipping fee of $10 per ton. During his term, President Ramos did not approve the contract and President Estrada likewise debunked it because JEC raised the tipping fee from $10 to $59 per ton.

Despite the passage of the Clean Air Act and the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (both banned the use of incarcerators), the Supreme Court declared the contract valid in April 2002 in a decision penned by Justice Jose Melo.

Still, Arroyo said the deal had many flaws. Arroyo passed the decision to the Manila Metropolitan and Development Authority (MMDA) to decide whether the deal is disadvantageous to the government or not. Although negotiations had started between the MMDA and Jancom, Arroyo called off the deal in April 2002.

Mismanaged funds

Issues on mismanaged funds by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) and the GSIS caught the public eye in 2002. PAGCOR had been experiencing negative cash flows that bloated to P850 million in 2003. A Pagcor manager gave three reasons behind the financial difficulties: 'onerous' contracts, profligate spending, and massive, mindless donations.

GSIS president and general manager Winston Garcia ordered its units to stop the processing of claims and loan applications because of financial difficulty. The Kapisanan ng Manggagawa attributed the financial problems to the following: Garcia's cash advances amounting to P3.4 million, the establishment of district offices worth P4 million each, and the appointment of outside legal counsel for P200,000 a month.

Garcia allegedly used GSIS money to purchase Juan Luna's Parisian Life painting. Likewise, Garcia was said to earn P540,000 a month and appointed some 130 vice-presidents who earn P70,000 a month. There were allegations that GSIS contributed at least P100 million to the campaign funds of Pres. Arroyo. Garcia was retained in his post despite appeals from GSIS employees.

In 2004, before the Senate committee on government corporations and public enterprises, Garcia dismissed the charges and said GSIS is “the country’s top performing government-owned and controlled corporation.” He did not comment on the Juan Luna paintings.

FG as OFW envoy

In December, President Arroyo designated Mike Arroyo as an OFW envoy so he could represent her in the countries she could not visit. However, critics assailed Arroyo's announcement when they learned that his activities as OFW envoy would be funded by a proposed overseas workers legal assistance fund. They feared that the Arroyo couple would use the funds for her 2004 campaign. While the President did not recall her husband's designation, the First Gentleman voluntarily resigned.

Naia’s Terminal 3

In 2002, Transportation Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez obtained overpriced subcontracts for public works projects related to the terminal. Among these is Wintrack Builders Inc., owned by Alvarez, which bagged a site-development project.

Piatco was also accused of paying huge sums of money to Alfonso S. Liongson, PR consultant and said to be an associate of the First Gentleman, for permits or supplementary agreements to the contract. In 2003, Arroyo revoked Piatco's build-operate-transfer contract and the government took over the airport in 2004. After almost a decade, the airport was partially opened in 2008.


2003

Rotten rice!

In February 2003, Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla revealed that 600,000 metric tons of rice imported from India were found to be rotten and moldy. Kishore Hemlani, an Indian trader allegedly close to Arroyo, reportedly bagged the P9.5 billion contract for the rice importation.

Anthony Abad, head of the National Food Authority, had to dispose of some P2.2-million worth of moldy rice stocks and tried to dispose of the remaining sacks in order to recover at least P2.5 billion.

Undeclared wealth in San Francisco

Since she got elected in 1992 as senator, Arroyo had failed to declare in her Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth the properties her husband Mike Arroyo bought in San Francisco through his California-based LTA Realty Corporation. According to Newsbreak, Mike acquired, resold, and managed at least five properties with a total value of at least $7.1 million in the Bay City from 1992 to 2000. The First Couple said the properties were bought in trust for Ignacio or Iggy Arroyo, Mike's younger brother.

Mikey Arroyo's imported horses

In August, news broke out that presidential son Juan Miguel "Mikey" Arroyo planned to import 32 thoroughbred horses from Melbourne, Australia worth P384 million (at P12 million per horse). Mikey denied the allegation but admitted that he was in the horse-trade business.

He owns Franchino Farms along with cousin Franchino Pamintuan and friend Ralph Mondragon. (We requested for Mikey’s SALN but it has not been granted as of press time.)

Jose Pidal accounts

In August, opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson accused First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo of money laundering: he allegedly siphoned off at least P321 million in campaign funds and contributions and put these in a secret bank account under the name Jose Pidal. He also supposedly used the names of his aides in three other accounts. According to Lacson, among the donors was then Rep. Mark Jimenez who gave P8 million. Arroyo's younger brother, Iggy, came forward and admitted he is Jose Pidal.

Oakwood mutiny

Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes' alleged involvement in selling arms and ammunitions to guerilla and bandit groups moved 300 young officers and enlisted men of the AFP to rebel against the government in July. Reyes was forced to resign a few weeks later. The rebel soldiers were detained.

The 321 armed soldiers apologized for the failed rebellion. In 2004, 133 of the soldiers were freed. Capt. Nicanor Faeldon, one of the alleged leaders, escaped in December 2005. Four other leaders escaped after Faeldon did. Faeldon was captured in 2007 but escaped again a few months after.

Reyes, since then, has held other Cabinet posts: environment secretary and energy secretary.

Congress vs. Supreme Court

The clash of the two co-equal bodies was all about the billions of pesos in Judiciary Development Fund (JDF) and how it was spent. The Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) and its allies in Congress, peeved that they were being ignored by the Supreme Court, went after Chief Justice Hilario Davide. They almost impeached him.

President Arroyo acted on the controversy only when it reached crisis proportions. She was balancing between competing interests: her political support from Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco’s NPC and Davide’s tenure on the Court.

2004

The super-rich general

In December, Maj. Gen. Carlos F. Garcia's son was apprehended by US Customs officials at the San Francisco airport for carrying $100,000 in undeclared cash. AFP Chief of Staff Narciso Abaya asked Garcia to explain and transferred him to another position.

Later in the year, US Customs and the Federal Bureau of Investigation transmitted to the office of Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo a list of the amounts that General Garcia had brought into the US from 1993 to 2003, which was estimated at P71 million.

In October 2004, Garcia was charged with violating Articles of War 95 (conduct unbecoming of an officer and gentleman) and 96 (acts prejudicial to good order and military discipline) for failing to declare all his assets in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth and for possessing a US green card. In April 2006, the military court sentenced Garcia to a two-year confinement without pay and allowance and dishonorable discharge. Garcia also faced graft charges in the same court.

In February 2009, Garcia’s sons, Juan Pablo and Ian Carl were indicted in the US with one count of conspiracy to commit bulk cash smuggling, failing to file a report of monetary instruments, and making false statements to a US government agency. The sons were placed in US custody until proven innocent. On the same month, Garcia was found guilty of misdeclaring his assets and liabilities in 2000. He was acquitted from two other perjury cases.

On June 2009, the Sandiganbayan acquitted Garcia of the last perjury case, saying there was no proof that the retired general lied in his 1997 SALN. However, the retired general is still facing plunder and forfeiture cases in the Sandiganbayan and is still being detained in Camp Crame.


No bidding for Northrail

The Northrail project started during Ramos's administration but it was only in February 2004 when Finance Secretary Juanita Amatong entered into a credit loan agreement with the Export-Import Bank of China. The agreement granted the Philippine government a $400-million loan facility to finance the construction of the project.

Critics said the interest rate on the loan per annum (3%) is much higher than the rate on other loan packages that the Philippines could have availed itself of. China National Machinery and Equipment Corporation was designated as the prime contractor for the project without public bidding. The Senate probed the issue but the hearings were stalled in 2005 after Malacañang issued EO 464, requiring Cabinet members to seek presidential clearance before they could testify in congressional hearings.


Fertilizer fund scam

The controversy started when President Arroyo was accused of using fertilizer funds for the 2004 election. The fund, worth P728 million, fell under the Ginintuang Masagana Ani Program. Jocelyn Bolante, agriculture undersecretary and regarded as the architect of the fund, left the country and sought asylum in America. He came back to the country in 2008 and faced the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.

Bolante told the Senate that (1) he does not know who nominated or recommended him to be an agriculture undersecretary, (2) it was former Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo who requested the release of the funds, (3) the fertilizer fund was valid and legal and was approved by the DA, and that (4) when he left the department in August 2004, 91% of the fertilizer funds had been liquidated already.

The committee recommended the filing of plunder and other criminal case against him and nine other persons but no case was filed. In January 2009, the panel who investigated the fertilizer fund scam submitted the proposed resolution to Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.

No reports on the investigation have been released from both the Ombudsman and the justice department. In March 2009, Bolante disclosed a plan to run either as governor or congressman in Capiz, Roxas.

Philhealth cards for campaign

Six weeks before the May 2004 elections, two lawyers filed a disqualification case against President Arroyo, saying she was behind the enhanced Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office's Greater Medicare Access or GMA program. Public funds were allegedly spent to enroll families in PhilHealth for one year. The premium cost of P1,200 for each family member was chargeable to PhilHealth and the PCSO. The IDs, bearing Arroyo's picture and name, were coincidentally distributed during the start of the election campaign.

2005

Hello, Garci

More than a year after the election, a recording of a telephone conversation between President Arroyo and election commissioner Virgilio “Garci” Garcillano was released to the public. In this conversation, Arroyo directed him to make sure she wins by one million votes. After weeks of ducking the issue, Arroyo apologized for "a lapse in judgment" in talking with an election commissioner but explained that she merely wanted to protect her votes.

Hyatt 10

Eight cabinet members and two bureau heads, called the Hyatt 10, filed their irrevocable resignations in the aftermath of the “Hello, Garci” scandal and requested Arroyo to resign. The Hyatt 10 is composed of Secretaries Florencio Abad (education), Juan Santos (trade and industry), Emilia Boncodin (budget and management), Cesar Purisima (finance), Dinky Soliman (social welfare and development), Rene Villa (land reform), Alberto Lina (customs), Guillermo Parayno (internal revenues), Teresita Quintos Deles (adviser on the peace process), and Imelda Nicolas of the national anti-poverty commission.

Juetengate

In Senate hearings on jueteng that began in May 2005, jueteng operators and bagmen said the President's husband, Mike, her son Mikey, and her brother-in-law Ignacio or Iggy were among those who received monthly payoffs from gambling lords. The payoffs ranged from P500,000 to P1 million.

One of the key witnesses, businesswoman Sandra Cam, testified that in December 2004, she personally delivered the cash to Mikey and Iggy at the House of Representatives; the money came from retired Chief Supt. Restituto Mosqueda, former police director for Bicol and alleged protector of jueteng operations in Luzon.

Richard Garcia and Demosthenes Abraham Riva also told a Senate hearing that the three Arroyos had been receiving payola from jueteng operations in Bicol. Michaelangelo Zuce, an aide of former commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and a former staff member of presidential adviser on political affairs Joey Rufino, directly linked the President to jueteng by saying that before the 2004 elections, the President distributed money to several election officials in her house in La Vista, Quezon City, in the presence of Bong Pineda's wife, Lilia Pineda.

Garcia and Riva retracted their statements a few months later and said they were merely "coached" by Sen. Panfilo Lacson. Zuce's testimony failed to take off after one witness did not corroborate Zuce's claim. Former Isabela Gov. Faustino Dy Jr. who was also said to have been present at the La Vista meeting, flew to the US and refused to come to Manila to testify.

Aragoncillo, the spy

Leandro Aragoncillo, a Filipino American in the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, was arrested for allegedly taking classified documents from computers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the FBI and sending them to opposition leaders in the Philippines. The documents were primarily analyses of the Philippines' political situation by US Embassy officials.

Among others, the documents said that: "Arroyo has always exhibited paranoia and the need to control every aspect of the Philippine economy and politics. As time ticked out for her administration, it was clear the biggest problem was Arroyo herself."

Aragoncillo was charged with acting as an agent of a foreign government or official and faces up to 25 years in prison.

Mega-anomaly in Comelec

According to Solicitor General Alfredo Benipayo, the botched P1.3 billion poll modernization project of Comelec was overpriced by P500 million. Comelec ignored its own bidding rules and changed these to suit one favored bidder: MegaPacific Corp.

The SC deemed the process flawed and declared the contract null and void. The Office of the Ombudsman committee created by Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez initially indicted Commissioner Resurreccion Borra but cleared him a few months later. Abalos and company were ruled to be not liable for the voided contract.

Lozano's complaints

Oliver Lozano filled an impeachment complaint against President Arroyo during the height of the “Hello, Garci” scandal. Congress declared the complaint to be technically deficient. Oliver Lozano filed another impeachment complaint against President Arroyo on 2006. Like the first one, his second complaint was defeated due to insufficiency in substance.

For the third time, Lozano filed his impeachment complaint against the President on 2007. Like the second version, this impeachment rap was dismissed for insufficiency in substance. Critics say Lozano's impeachment complaints were moves to hinder the submission of a solid complaint against the President.

Weeks after former Arroyo ally Jose De Venecia filed his impeachment complaint in 2008, Lozano took his fourth try with a four-page impeachment complaint penned with his daughter, Atty Evangeline Lozano, and another lawyer, Elly Pamatong.

Imelda’s jewelries

Former First Lady Imelda Marcos asked a Manila court to stop a Philippine Commission on Good Government auction of her P15-billion jewelries. Marcos claimed the jewelries belonged solely to her. No restraining order was issued by the court.

The PCGG has two of the three jewelry collections in the vaults of the Bangko Sentral ng Philipinas and planned to auction off majority of the jewelries in May 2009, with strong resistance from Mrs. Marcos.


2006

FG in $20,000 hotel suite!

During Manny Pacquiao's match with Erick Morales in Las Vegas, the First Gentleman allegedly stayed in a $20,000-a-night suite at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mike said that there was nothing corrupt about accepting the free luxury suite offered to him by the hotel. He argued that as the husband of a head of state, he was entitled to such perks.

No German bank account

Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano claimed that a member of the Arroyo family maintained a bank account in Germany amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. First Gentleman Arroyo flew to Germany and secured a certification from the bank to disprove Cayetano's claims. Upon his return, he sought Cayetano's expulsion from Congress but without success.

Toxic JPEPA?

The Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) was signed between Arroyo and former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The treaty aimed to promote investments and trade between the two countries. Various civil society groups contested the agreement because the government did not consult them. According to these groups, although the agreement secures employment in Japan, the treaty includes an “environmentally unjust bilateral trade.”

In 2008, the Senate finally ratified the agreement by a vote of 16-4 as the agreement was favorable since 95% of exports from the Philippines to Japan will have zero duties.

Meanwhile, numerous representatives from the House questioned the Senate decision as the agreement “will bring a tsunami of unfair trade and toxic wastes.”


2007

Estrada pardon

After spending six years in detention for plunder and graft and corruption charges, former President Estrada was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Sandiganbayan in October 2007. Three days after, President Arroyo granted him pardon citing a policy to release prisoners aged 70.

Fallout from ZTE

The scandal was exposed in August 2007, a few months after Transport Secretary Leandro Mendoza and ZTE Corp Vice President Yu Yong signed a $329.5 million contact for a national broadband network deal in April. President Arroyo and the First Gentlemen were said to have visited China for the contract-signing.

Rep. Carlos Padilla (Nueva Vizcaya) said that Comelec chairperson Benjamin Abalos also joined the President in China to broker the deal. Abalos denied brokering the deal but admitted going to China four times. In September 2007, the son of Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr testified that he was with Abalos in China and that Abalos demanded money from ZTE officials.

The following day, the Supreme Court promulgated a TRO stopping the deal between the Philippines and China and gave ZTE 15 days to comment.

NEDA chair Romulo Neri testified in the Senate hearings and said Abalos tried to bribe him with P200 million but he refused to answer some senators' questions, citing executive privilege. Abalos resigned as Comelec chair in October 2007 as President Arroyo cancelled the deal in a trip to China.

Jun Lozada, former chief executive officer of Philippine Forest Corporation and NEDA consultant, testified in February 2008 that Abalos and the First Gentlemen were to receive kickbacks once the deal was signed. Speaker Jose de Venecia was unseated and got dragged into the deal when his son said he was also in China.

On July 2008, the SC dismissed three petitions that question the constitutionality of the deal and declared it moot and academic.

Impeachment: Pulido's version

Lawyer Roel Pulido filed an impeachment complaint against President Arroyo. Endorsed by an administration ally, Laguna Rep. Edgar San Luis, it was seen as a move to foil another complaint against the President.

Congress thrashed the complaint.

Money from Malacañang

Pampanga Gov. Eddie Panlilio revealed that he was given a paper bag containing P500,000 in a Malacañang meeting in October 2007. The money was allegedly for community projects. The bags were handed out by a female Malacañang staff. Panlilio said he accepted the money because because no conditions were attached; he did not consider it a bribe. Various versions of the source of the money came out as other local officials present in the meeting admitted receiving either P500,000 or P200,000.

Other officials who confirmed receiving money were Governors Joselito Mendoza, Leo Campos, and Representatives Rachel Arenas, Antonio Cuenco, Bienvenido Abante, Mauricio Domogan, Tomas Dumpit Jr, and some others who refused to be named. The named 9 officials were charged by the Office of the Ombudsman for allegedly receiving bribes. Due to numerous versions on the source of the money, Sen. Miguel Zubiri said during the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing that the money has no direct link to the Palace.

Glorietta 2 and Batasan bombings

After the string of controversies hounding the Arroyo administration, bombing incidents happened in Glorietta 2 and the House of Representatives. The police, in a speedy investigation, found that the bombing of Batasan was initially intended for Basilan Rep. Wahab Akbar.

The Glorietta 2 bombing, on the other hand, resulted from gas leakage. Rumors spread that the bombings were perpetrated by the government to divert the public’s attention away from the Arroyo scandals.

The Batasan bombing happened the day before Pampanga Gov. Ed Panlilio was set to testify on the bribery of local officials in the Senate and a day before the House justice committee was to hear the impeachment case.

The Glorietta 2 bombing happened during the height of the bribery case which took place in Malacañang.

Manila Pen siege

Antonio Trillanes IV, together with Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim and 25 other Magdalo officers walked out of their trial and marched on the streets of Makati City. Former Vice-President Teofisto Guingona and some soldiers from the AFP joined the march that ended in Peninsula Manila Hotel. After several hours, the group surrendered to the government forces after a military assault. They were arrested and several journalists were detained.

Missing: Jonas Burgos

Of the numerous human rights violations, political killings, and abductions during Arroyo's administration, the case of activist Jonas Burgos has become the most prominent. Burgos was missing since late April and eyewitnesses said he was dragged from a mall in Commonwealth to a Toyota Revo by five men. The license plate of the Revo was traced to the 56th Infantry Battalion camp in Bulacan.


2008

Teehankee pardon

In 1991, Claudio Teehankee Jr was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of killing Maureen Hultman, John Roland Chapman, and wounding Jussi Leino. Last November 2008, President Arroyo granted Teehankee pardon. It was reported that the Hultmans "approved" the pardon and received a settlement of P6 million. The Hultmans were enraged that the pardon was "kept secret" and denied receiving the money.

Euro generals

In an Interpol conference in Moscow, police comptroller director Eliseo De la Paz and his group were detained because of carrying undeclared cash worth 105,000 euros (P6.9 million). At the time of the conference, De la Paz had already retired from service.

When the group returned, the Senate called for hearings on the issue. De la Paz said the money was "cash advance" for "emergency cases." His statement was questioned as PNP Chief Jesus Versoza said the money was for purchasing intelligence equipment.

The Senate recommended that the justice department and the Ombudsman conduct a preliminary investigation on the PNP delegates to the Interpol assembly as the group violated the travel ban under Administrative Order No. 103, the law on allowable travel expenses, and the rule on retired officials or those about to retire. The report also proposed a preliminary investigation on interior and local government chief Reynato Puno and Versoza for allowing the group to travel and for ignoring the travel ban.

As of March 2009, De la Paz settled the remaining 65,000 euros, fully paying for the cash advance and avoiding a civil law suit.

C-5 insertion

Senators Panfilo Lacson and Jamby Madrigal spilled the beans on Senate president Manny Villar when they exposed his double insertion of a P200 million C-5 project in the 2008 budget. After a few months, Villar resigned as Senate president when he learned about the planned "ouster" led by Lacson. Enrile became Senate president.

In May 2009, although Villar was out of the country, the Senate ethics committee deliberated on the alleged C-5 insertion and declared the ethics complaint filed by Madrigal as sufficient in substance.

Meralco and the tainted court

What started out as a tug-of-war between the Lopezes and GSIS over control of Meralco ended up tainting the reputation of the Court of Appeals. The scandal started when Justice Jose Sabio Jr told the media that he was offered a P10 million bribe by an alleged Meralco emissary, businessman Francis Borja.

The Supreme Court conducted a public investigation on the CA justices. Lapses in the justices' decisions and CA procedures were unearthed. The verdict: Justice Vicente Roxas was dismissed, Sabio and Justice Bienvenido Reyes were suspended, and Justice Myrna Vidal was reprimanded.

Impeachment: Joey’s complaint

Joey de Venecia, son of former House Speaker Jose De Venecia, filed an impeachment complaint against President Arroyo, particularly because of the overpriced NBN-ZTE broadband deal. The complaint was found sufficient in form but was dismissed after House representatives voted 42-8, ruling the complaint as insufficient in substance.

Resurrecting nuke power plant

Tarlac Rep. Mark Cojuangco and Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo filed HB 4631 or the Bataan nuclear power plant commissioning act, a bill aimed at rehabilitating the mothballed power plant for $1.4 billion. Various groups were strongly against the re-opening of the plant, stating that more viable and cheaper options are available like renewable energy. A feasibility study was requested from Cojuangco to prove that BNPP’s structures are still in good condition. A consolidated HB 6300 was submitted to the House and will be deliberated after the legislative break in July.

The failed ancestral domain agreement

In June 2001, President Arroyo signed the GRP-MILF Tripoli agreement in Libya, paving the way for peace talks between the government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. By May 2003, due to numerous bombings in Mindanao, Arroyo canceled the peace talks. Talks resumed two months later in Kuala Lumpur.

In January 2004, peace monitors from Malaysia, Brunei, and Libya went to Mindanao to monitor the five-year truce between the two parties. The discussion on ancestral domain progressed and was divided into four strands: concept, territory, resources, and governance.

By November 2007, government panel chair Rodolfo Garcia and MILF peace panel chair Mohagher Iqbal said that the agreement can finally be concluded. But by December of the same year, the ancestral domain negotiations reached a deadlock due to constitutional issues.

The text of the Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) caused a big stir when it leaked to the press. On August 2008, the Supreme Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order on the peace agreement and suggested renegotiating the homeland deal.

In September 2008, the government dissolved the panel conducting the peace negotiations with the MILF, formed a new one, and announced that negotiations will depend on whether the MILF will turn over two rogue field commanders and other members who attacked North Cotabato, Lanao del Norte, and other provinces in Mindanao. The peace talks were set to resume in 2009.


2009

Red Cross kidnapping

On January, gunmen on motorcycles intercepted an International Committee of the Red Cross vehicle and kidnapped three workers: Italian Eugenio Vagni, Swiss Andreas Notter, and Filipina Mary Jean Lacaba. The group behind it, identified as the Abu Sayyaf, asked for ransom. The Philippine Red Cross, under Sen. Richard Gordon, refused to pay the ransom. The group threatened to behead the workers.

Three months after the kidnapping, after numerous negotiations, Lacaba was released. A few days after, Notter was released as well. Vagni, after six months of being held captive, was eventually released July 12.

Con Ass

In 2005, Arroyo initiated a move to change the Constitution and transform the present presidential-bicameral republic into a parliamentary-unicameral form of government but failed.

By late 2006, the House shelved a plan to revise the Constitution through a constituent assembly. In June 2009, two days before the House adjourned, they passed HR Bill 1109. The bill calls for a Constituent Assembly to amend the 1986 Constitution.

Dacer-Corbito double murder case

After spending years in America, Cesar Mancao returned and was willing to speak out on the murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000. Mancao became a state witness in July 2009.

Aside from Mancao, 21 others were accused of the same charges. According to Mancao, he is no longer afraid of anyone, particularly of Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who consequently denied having a hand in the crime.

Dacer was asked by former President Estrada to boost his image during the height of the BW scam and the latter’s impeachment trial. The publicist was said to have knowledge of BW Resources Corp, a gaming firm in which Estrada owned shares. The scam started when it was found out that BW won an exclusive contract to operate on-line bingo and introduce Quick Pick-2 in 1999, a game similar to jueteng. On that same year, PAGCOR granted BW a nationwide online bingo franchise. Further investigation revealed that Dante Tan, Estrada’s alleged financier during the latter’s presidential bid, had been heavily buying shares in BW.

In late 2000, the charred bodies of Dacer and his driver were found in a creek in Cavite and eyewitnesses said they were abducted and killed by policemen. Some of the witnesses pointed to Estrada as the mastermind of the killing through Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force chief Lacson.

CARP extension

A few days before the House’s legislative break, the body passed House Bill 4077 to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law for another five years. The House appropriated P100 billion for land acquisition and distribution, support services, and other funding requirements. The Senate has also approved its own version of the bill.

In 2007, Arroyo certified an urgent bill to extend the law. The program has yet to distribute a million hectares to another two million beneficiaries.

RH bill

In June, the controversial House Bill 5043 or reproductive health bill was trashed in the House of Representatives, as it failed to gather enough votes from the lawmakers. The bill was penned by Cong. Edcel Lagman and it advocates, among others, the use of government funds to provide free contraceptives to the poor. The bill reached the plenary on 2008 and has since been under fire from various groups, particularly those with the Catholic Church.

Right of reply bill

The controversial Right of Reply bill (RORB) failed to gather enough signatures and was not passed in the House. Since it was filed last year, numerous groups, especially from media organizations, have contested the passing of the bill.

In February, seven senators reiterated their support for the bill. Arroyo, on the other hand, assured journalists while the bill was being deliberated in the House that she will not hesitate to trash it should it contain provisions that will curtail press freedom.

Baselines bill

In March, Arroyo signed Republic Act 9522 or the Philippine Archipelagic Baselines law, a controversial law that defines the country’s baselines and claims in the South China Sea. The bill includes the Kalayaan Group of Islands and Scarborough Shoal as parts of “regime of islands.” The other countries who have been claiming the islands are China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei.

Misuse of Balikatan funds

Navy Lt. Nancy Gadian revealed an alleged malversation of funds in the 2007 Balikatan joint military exercises with the United States. According to Gadian, Gen. Eugenio Cedo, former Mindanao Command head, pocketed P2.3 million of the money and the rest were pocketed by other higher Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) officials. The Balikatan exercises were given a P4.6 million fund.

Arroyo ordered the defense department to investigate Gadian’s allegations. Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr, AFP public information officer chief, said the alleged malversed funds were properly accounted for in the Commission on Audit reports. He also challenged Gadian to come out and file a proper complaint.

GMA in Congress?

Due to rumors that Arroyo is planning to run for Congress, election lawyers clarified that there are no provisions that prohibit Arroyo from resigning as president if she runs for a lower post. They cite Sec. 67 of the Omnibus Election Code which was repealed in the Fair Elections Act passed in 2001, Arroyo’s first year as president after Edsa 2.

The Code states that “any elective official, whether national or local, running for any office other than the one which he is holding in a permanent capacity, except for President and Vice-President, shall be considered ipso facto resigned from his office upon the filing of his certificate of candidacy.”

Helicopter crash

In April 2009, a helicopter carrying eight passengers, two of whom were Cabinet undersecretaries and a senior military aide, crashed in the Ifugao region. The Philippine Air Force (PAF) blamed bad weather for the accident.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, chair of the senate committee on national defense and security, questioned why the helicopter was allowed to fly from Loakan Airport in Baguio in the afternoon when visibility was low and why there was no back-up helicopter provided at the time. There were allegations that the helicopter was delayed for three hours because it was used to ferry Congressman Mikey Arroyo, the president’s eldest son, from Manila to Baguio.

According to press Secretary Cerge Remonde, the helicopter indeed carried Mikey and the others from Manila and arrived in Baguio at past two in the afternoon, ahead of the other helicopter which carried Arroyo and her party. The same helicopter Mikey used was the same helicopter used by the eight passengers who were supposed to conduct an ocular inspection of the Halsema Highway; Arroyo was scheduled to visit this highway the next day.

Sources: Various news reports

Malacanang-sponsored Coup D'etat

PMA ’78 TO BACK OCTOBER SELF-COUP

Oplan August Moon seeks Gloria perpetuity

Daily Tribune
By Mario J. Mallari

06/29/2009

A velvet coup plot, dubbed Operation Plan August Moon, which is aimed at perpetuating President Arroyo in power beyond 2010 by placing generals loyal to her in key military and police posts is in place, concerned members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said yesterday.

Oplan August Moon, sources claimed, would benefit members of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) class of 1978 which includes Lt. Gen. Delfin Bangit, commanding general of the 70,000-strong Philippine Army, and has President Arroyo as honorary member.

In the alleged plot, AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Victor Ibrado would become the “collateral damage” as the group would push Bangit as replacement for the incumbent military chief.

“The plotters target October as the finale of the three-month campaign wherein Bangit would replace General Ibrado…other key posts would be given to other members of the PMA Class of 1978,” a source said.

Oplan August Moon was inspired by the Chinese’s Moon Festival, a popular harvest festivities started during the Shang Dynasty 3,000 years ago.

Other members of the PMA Class of 1978 occupying key positions in the AFP and Philippine National Police (PNP) are Air Force chief Lt. Gen. Oscar Rabena, National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) director Chief Supt. Roberto Rosales and Intelligence Service of the AFP (Isafp) chief Maj. Gen. Romeo Preztosa.

The AFP leadership, however, has maintained that all promotions to key positions in the military go through the rigid selection process being conducted by the board of generals.

Almost the same scenario was earlier exposed by Nueva Ecija Rep. Edno Joson who expressed belief that President Arroyo is conniving with PMA Class of 1978 in pushing the constitutional amendment through constituent assembly (con-ass). Joson’s view came following the

passage of Resolution 1109 before the House of Representatives by allies of the Arroyo administration.

Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner, AFP spokesman, however, yesterday quickly dismissed the supposed plot as non-existent as he maintained the AFP is professional.

“As far as the AFP is concerned, Oplan August Moon does not exist,” said Brawner.

“Moreover, there are no dissenters among the ranks of the AFP other than those who are already in detention,” Brawner further said.

Another military source branded the plot as another desperate move by the Arroyo administration to remain in power.

“Whatever it takes just to remain in power beyond 2010,” the source said.

Retired Commodore and military critic Rex Robles slammed the plan: “This violates the existing policy of the military which prohibits you from being reassigned one year before you retire.’’

“The military leadership should do something about this. These officers should retire properly,’’ he said.

The plot is anchored on perpetuating the Arroyo administration to stay in power beyond 2010. The President is an adopted member of Class 78.

Joson earlier raised possibility that the influential Class 78 is exploiting current political developments, including the revival of Dacer-Corbito double murder case.

“A disgruntled military will mean all kinds of trouble in our country,” he said in a text message.

Militant Gabriela Women’s Group Rep. Liza Maza said shared Joson’s view that Class ’78 is a “powerful instrument” in manipulating and twisting the country’s history.

Earlier, Senators are convinced that members of the favored Class 78 are bent on pushing Charter Change through constitutional assembly.

Sen. Roldofo Biazon had warned that he feels varying levels of “emotional involvement” among soldiers.

Opposition stalwart Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr., said members of Class 78 occupy juicy posts in the military.

Bishop Deogracias Yniguez of Caloocan cautioned that the “will of the people should prevail” and hopes that members of Class 78 will not allow themselves “to be used.”

Explained Yniguez. “The danger signals are already beginning to appear. There is now a wide spread expression of opposition to the measure and there is a growing restlessness among significant sectors who are calling for action to defeat this obvious attempt to take a short cut to change the fundamental law.”

Rep. Erin Tañada believes that PMA Class ’78 should “stay away from politics” as the military should remain apolitical.

Sources at Camp Aguinaldo said “a number of soldiers have joined the swelling ranks of dissenters in the AFP.”

The same sources detailed possible scenarios that might happen should President Arroyo insist on using the military, particularly members of Class 78, in pushing Charter Change.

Bangit became famous when, as intelligence chief, he threw P500 bills, during the Christmas party of the Intelligence Service of the AFP in 2006.

Intelligence officers said “emperor” is their code name for Bangit, who also headed the Presidential Security Group.

No to CON-ASS

‘No to Cha-Cha, No to Gloria’
Left, right, and center join to denounce her bid to extend stay

BY ASHZEL HACHERO and JP LOPEZ

A CROSS-SECTION of society showed up yesterday in Makati City’s business financial district to show their opposition to moves of President Arroyo’s allies to extend her hold on power by amending the Constitution.

Organizers said the rally gathered up to 15,000 participants, including members of militant, student, and Church groups, and political figures. But the police said the crowd to have peaked at only 6,000.

The crowd during the 5 to 8 p.m. rally at Paseo de Roxas and Ayala avenues was bigger than the anti-Cha-cha rally held last December also in Makati, which organizers said had some 10,000 participants.

Towards the end of the rally, actress Bibeth Orteza read a "people’s resolution" denouncing House Resolution 1109, and called for a viva voce vote among the participants.

HR 1109 was passed by Arroyo’s allies last week without Senate participation. It calls on Congress to convene into a constituent assembly to amend the Constitution.

They protesters brought effigies and streamers and banners saying "No to Cha-Cha, No to Gloria Forever."

The protesters started converging toward the rally site at about 4 p.m., under a shower of confetti from buildings on Ayala ave.

Rally organizers set up a stage where speakers took turns assailing the administration-led efforts to amend the Charter, which they said would eventually pave the way for the extension of the term of President Arroyo and other elected public officials.

Makati Mayor and United Opposition president Jejomar Binay said yesterday’s rally was just a prelude to much larger protests in the coming days.

"Kailangang ipakita natin sa rehimeng Arroyo na hindi tayo papayag na ameyandahan at salaulahin an gating Konstitusyon dahil sa kanilang mga pansariling interes," he said.

Former Palace ally Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr. said Arroyo is intent on staying beyond her term.

Rally speakers said amendments to the Constitution could not be trusted in the hands of 117 "irresponsible" congressmen who approved, "like a thief in the night," House Resolution 1109 convening Congress into a constituent assembly.

The faces of the 177 congressmen were flashed on three wide screens at the stage.

During an interfaith rally that preceded the protest action, Bishop Solito Toquero of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines said it has been the position of their group that now this is not the proper time to amend the Constitution.

"Hindi po tayo sigurado sa mga kasalukuyang nakaupo sa Kongreso na nag-apruba ng House Resolutiom 1109. Di po tayo sigurado sa mga iresponsableng nakaupo ngayon," he told the cheering crowd.

Sr. John Mananzan of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines said: "Tinatawagan ko ang mga babaylan at mga anito! Isinusumpa natin ang kawalanghiyaan at katiwalian ng administrasyong ito!"

Bayan chair Carol Araullo said "this unity among various groups and personalities has been caused by the very real threat of having Arroyo stay in power. It is somehow to the credit of Mrs. Arroyo and her cohorts that the nation urgently comes together in protest," she said.

Senators Francis Escudero, Loren Legarda, Mar Roxas, Richard Gordon and Maria Ana Consuelo Madrigal were given 30 seconds each to speak.

Other senators seen in the rally were Panfilo Lacson, Rodolfo Biazon, Benigno Aquino III and Pia Cayetano.

"Malacañang’s spokespersons have taken turns in defending the President, insisting that Mrs. Arroyo had no knowledge or blessing of the plot to force Con-Ass in the House. And yet she has not done anything to rein in her allies in Congress from pursuing their political adventurism," she said.

Among other personalities who attended the rally were f Jun Lozada, Pampanga Gov. Ed Panlilio, Sen. Franklin Drilon, Bayan Muna party list Rep. Satur Ocampo, Liza Maza of Gabriela, Teddy Casiño of Bayan Muna, Rafael Mariano of Anak-Pawis, former Rep. Nereus Acosta, former Vice President Toefisto Guingona and his son, Bukidnon Rep. TJ Guingona, former Philippine Tourism Authority chief Nixon Kua, Fernando Poe’s daughter Grace Poe Llamanzares, Armida Siguion-Reyna, Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez, former Trade secretary Cesar Purisima, former Education secretary Florencio Abad, Gina de Venecia, Leah Navarro, Vicente Romano, former Social Welfare secretary Corazon Soliman, former Tourism secretary Narzalina Lim, and former DOTC undersecretary Josefina Lichauco.

Among participating groups were the rightist military group Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabayan; leftist militants Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, and Anakbayan; Former Senior Government Officials (FSGO), Alliance of Progressive Labor, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines , Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, Union of the Masses for Democracy and Justice, Akbayan and many others.

The United Opposition (UNO), Filipinos for Peace, Justice and Progress Movement (FPJPM), Nationalista Party, Concerned Citizens’ Movement, Black and White Movement, Stop Cha-cha Coalition, Sanlakas, Liberal Party, AMRSP and other religious groups, Kilusang Makabansang Ekonomiya, and Bangon Pilipinas led by Jesus is Lord leader Brother Eddie Villanueva also attended the rally.

Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes said similar mass actions were held in Baguio, Calamba City, Lucena City, Batangas City, Nasugbu, Bacoor, Dasmarinas and Silang Cavite, Antipolo City, Cebu City, Tagbilaran City, Sorsogon, Naga, Legazpi, Davao City, Bacolod, Iloilo, General Santos City, Iligan, Cagayan de Oro City, Cabadbaran in Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur and Surigao City. MALAYA

Excess gov’t execs cost taxpayers P58 M a year

Excess gov’t execs cost taxpayers P58 M a year
Written by Jesus Llanto
Wednesday, 20 May 2009


The Office of the President has the most number of excess—unqualified—undersecretaries and assistant secretaries

The government could save as much as P58 million a year if it would remove all the redundant executives from the bureaucracy, a study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) showed.

The 2008/2009 Philippine Human Development Report (PHDR), which was launched Wednesday in Quezon City, counted as many as 81 unneeded undersecretaries and assistant secretaries, most of them with the Office of the President.

More than half of these excess executives are unqualified for their positions, the study said.

The PHDR, called “Institution, Politics and Human Development,” said that aside from excess officials, the following factors have also undermined the quality of the bureaucracy at all levels in recent years: appointments made for political accommodation, an outdated compensation scheme, and the surge in the number of ad-hoc bodies, presidential consultants, and advisers.

The study noted that while only 131 undersecretaries and assistant secretaries are prescribed by law, the government had 222 incumbent employees occupying these positions as of December 2007. The figure represents an excess of 62 percent.
Ineligible

“If each draws an average of P722, 000 a year in salaries, allowances, and discretionary funds, then theses excess cost government an extra P58 million a year,” the study said.

The report also noted that more than half (56 percent) of these 222 department executives were “technically ineligible” to occupy their positions.

The Office of the President, the PHDR said, had the most number of excess undersecretaries and assistant secretaries at 31. Eighty-nine percent of them were ineligible for the position.

The study also said that the number of ad-hoc bodies and presidential advisers and consultants significantly increased in recent years.

“After peaking in 2002 at 175, there was a sharp decline in 2003 to 74 [ad-hoc bodies], attributed to the work of the Presidential Commision on Effective Governance (PCEG),” the study said. After the abolition of the PCEG in 2004, the number of ad-hoc bodies increased again and reached 85 in 2007.
Demoralizing

The significant increase in the number of consultants and advisers, meanwhile, started in 2002. Under the Ramos administration, the number of presidential consultants declined from 33 in 1994 to 27 in 1998. It reached 34 under the Estrada administration, but declined sharply to 15 during the early years of the Arroyo administration.

“The number of presidential consultants/ advisers has risen significantly since 2002, reaching an all-time high of 49 in 2008,” the study noted.

The study also warned against the creation of additional positions of presidential consultants and advisers. “Presidential consultants and advisers enjoy the title and authority, without accountability.”

Toby Melissa Monsod, one of the authors of the PHDR, said these appointments cause demoralization and destruction of initiative in the regular civil service.

“The practice of appointing non-career and non-eligible people into formal plantilla positions undermines the constitutional notion of ‘merit and fitness,’” Monsod said. She pointed out that about 10,000 positions are subject to presidential prerogative, which allows politicians to intervene in appointment process.
‘Perverse Incentives’

The study also identified the outdated compensation scheme as a factor in weakening the quality of government personnel. Paying low salaries, the government fails to retain its competent workers.

The government is the country’s biggest direct employer with 1.4 million workers.

“Perverse incentives in the civil service have weakened the quality of the bureaucracy at all levels in recent years,” the study said, adding that the compensation package for government employees pale in comparison with their peers in the private sectors.

“Salaries can be as much as 74 percent below comparative jobs in the private sector,” the study said, quoting a 2006 study by the Civil Service Commission.

“Most affected are directors, district engineers, school superintendents, college professors, prosecutors, state auditors, assistant secretaries, undersecretaries...people responsible for policy design, higher-level technical services, and the day-today management of the government,” the study said.

Other government positions suffering from low salaries are division chiefs, public lawyers, school principals, public health nurses, social workers, teachers, election officers, customs examiners, engineers, agriculturists, and those who are directly involved in the implementation of public programs.

The study said that there is a need to pass a law that would provide a new government classification and compensation scheme to restore professionalism and meritocracy in the bureaucracy.

Proposals for new salary standardization laws are pending in Congress. The proposed legislations seek to increase the salaries of government personnel and remove overlaps in salaries between positions, which resulted in instances where some subordinates receive higher salaries than their supervisors. (Newsbreak)

Philippines least competitive in Asia; graft blamed

RP least competitive in Asia; graft blamed

By Michaela P. del Callar

Daily Tribune 05/21/2009

The country slipped anew in terms of its global competitiveness ranking 43rd out of 57 countries in the World Competitiveness Yearbook that Swiss business school IMD released yesterday.

Among 12 Asian countries on the list, the Philippines got the poorest ranking with Hong Kong considered as the world’s second most competitive country, next to the United States. Singapore ranked 3rd; Japan, 17th; Malaysia, 18th; China, 20th; Taiwan, 23rd; Thailand, 26th; Korea, 27th; India, 30th; Kazakhstan, 36th, and Indonesia, 42nd.

The Philippines’ competitiveness grade had regressed the past five years having been ranked 40th in 2005, 42nd in 2006, 45th in 2007 before improving to 40th last year.

What’s more telling was that IMD ranked the economic performance of the country at 51st out of 57 this year despite President Arroyo’s continuous harping about her administration’s focus on uplifting the economy.

The economic performance of the country had deteriorated progressively since 2005 when it was ranked 36th, 45th in 2006 and 2007, and 42nd last year.

On government efficiency the Philippines was ranked 42nd, on business efficiency, 32nd and infrastructure second to the last at 56th.

Aside from perceptions of corruption, a weak government institution was blamed for the dismal ranking of the country in the annual competitiveness ranking.

A United Nations report echoed the IMD findings, saying weak congressional oversight on foreign aid

and national budget facilitates corruption in the country.

In the Philippine Human Development Report for the period 2008-2009, it said that “loopholes” in the current budget law give the executive and not congress the “power of the purse.”

It added that the President can override congressional budget mandates in a number of ways by not releasing or delaying the release of authorized appropriations and by using “savings” and “other unprogrammed, discretionary or confidential funds at will.”

The PHDR cited overwhelming amounts with savings ranging from P11.4 billion in 2004 t P117.5 billion in 2007.

Lump sums in the 2009 National Expenditure Program—defined as one-liner appropriations amounting to P100 million or more—amounted to P224 billion, or 16 percent of the proposed national budget. Confidential and intelligence funds amount to another P1.12 billion.

“Presidents can, and have restored programs scrapped by Congress by using ‘savings,’ lump sums or contingency funds,” the report said.

It lamented that mandatory obligations comprise more than 80 percent of the total annual budget on average, leaving little headroom to increase spending on basic services or fund innovations.

The report also pointed out that Congress plays a significant part in undermining its own powers, noting that when it fails to pass the national budget, the previous year’s budget is automatically re-enacted.

It said that there have been three fully re-enacted budgets since 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2006 and a few more being partially re-enacted.

“The re-enactment of a budget even strengthens the President’s control over allocations owing to larger savings that can be disbursed at his or her discretion,” the report said.

It also noted the lack of transparency in government agencies as they fail to submit quarterly financial reports in a complete and timely manner to Congress, the Commission on Audit, the Department of Budget and Management, and the Office of the President.

“One problem is the lack of any mechanism for systematic legal or administrative sanctions against such agencies, notwithstanding the oversight functions of the CoA,” the report said.

The report also cited many instances of unresolved “recurrent adverse audit findings” among national government agencies and corporations from the COA.

Five war-torn provinces in Southern Mindanao ranked lowest in the human development index due to lack of economic development, extreme poverty and thousands of displaced civilians due to ongoing hostilities between Muslim rebels and government troops .

At the bottom 10 are seven provinces from Mindanao, five of which are from the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the report that covers the country’s 77 provinces and Metro Manila released yesterday said.

Sulu, a stronghold of Muslim militants and a battleground for Philippine armed forces and rebels, was retained in the last spot, followed by Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, Basilan and Lana del Sur. Their performance in human development is comparable to Ghana, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan and Senegal.

“As human insecurity increases from armed conflict, people turn away from those social and activities that could have facilitated the development of their human potential,” the report said.

“Lives are destroyed, families and communities torn apart, cultures decline, and investment is foregone or deflected. Development in the immediate are stagnates and, through spillovers, the entire region and perhaps the entire country is affected,” it added.

Previous Philippine human development reporters dating back to the mid-1990s have consistently shown that the bottom 10 provinces in almost every aspect of human development are the most conflict-ridden.

New to the bottom 10 are Eastern Samar and Romblon and graduating from the lowest ranking provinces list are Agusan del Sur, Northern Samar and Surigao del Sur.

Provinces in Luzon led by Bataan, Benguet, Cavite and Rizal topped the human development rankings. Completing the top ten are Batanes, Ilocos Norte, Laguna, La Union, Nueva Vizcaya and Pampanga.

Human development levels increased for 51 provinces and declined for 27, including Metro Manila.

Benguet, Biliran and Siquijor were cioted as “the most improved in human development,” while the top ten provinces performed well in the gender-development index.

Overall, the Philippines is classified as a medium human development country, along with other Asian states like China and Thailand, ranking 90th out of 177 countries. Highest ranked countries are Australia, Canada, Japan, Iceland, Ireland, France, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

In terms of health, the estimated life expectancy at birth of the Philippines is 71 years, or 3.5 years above the average for medium-ranked countries. For simple literacy rate, the Philippines has 92.6 while real per-capita incomes is at $5,137 or about five percent above the average of $4,876 for the group.

“This is an improvement over the past computations, where the Philippines’ real per capita income was below the group average,” the report said.

Supreme Court sits 32 more party list solons

SC sits 32 more
party list solons
Says 20% mandated representation
by Charter must be followed

BY EVANGELINE DE VERA

THE Supreme Court yesterday allowed 32 more party list representatives to sit in the House of Representatives to comply with a constitutional requirement that 20 percent of House seats should be allotted to party list-groups.

In a 35-page decision penned by Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, the Court en banc struck down for being unconstitutional the 2 percent threshold in the distribution of additional seats in relation to the distribution of additional party list seats under R.A. 7941 (Party List System Law).The decision is immediately executory.

The 2 percent threshold presents an unwarranted obstacle to the full implementation of party list representation and prevents the attainment of "the broadest possible representation of party, sectoral or group interests in the House of Representatives," the SC said.

The high court, in its ruling, set the guidelines for parties running for the remaining party list slots in Congress.

The majority decision expands to 55 seats the number of allocated party list seats. At present, only 23 seats are filled from 17 winning party list groups.

The 17 qualified party list candidates, or the "two-percenters," are the party list candidates that are "entitled to one seat each," or a guaranteed seat in the first round of seat allocation.

The high court partially granted the petition filed by the Barangay Association for National Advancement and Transparency’s (BANAT) and set aside the ruling of the Commission on Elections en banc, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, which was promulgated on Aug. 3, 2007.

The assailed Comelec resolution approved the recommendation of Alioden D. Dalaig, head of the National Board of Canvassers (NBC) Legal Group, to deny the petition of BANAT for being moot. BANAT filed before the Comelec en banc a petition to implement the constitutional provision.

Under the ruling, the SC decided to continue its earlier ruling disallowing major political parties from participating in the party list elections, directly or indirectly.

While the SC left the computation to the Comelec, the Court ruling entitles at least four parties which already have two seats to an additional seat, namely, Bayan Muna, Cibac, Gabriela and Apec.

Those who benefited from the SC ruling were party list groups FPJPM, Uni-Mad, ABS, Kakusa, Kabataan, Aba-ako, Alif, Senior Citizens, AT, Veterans’ Federation of the Philippines, Anad, BANAT, Ang Kasangga, Bantay, Abakada, 1-Utak and the TUCP.

Others that would have additional one seat from their lone representation at this time are A-Teacher, Alagad, Coop-Natcco, Butil, Batas, ARC, Anakpawis, Abono, Anak Mindanao, Agap and An Waray.

Under the new formula, the SC said that the percentage of votes garnered by each party list candidate is arrived at by dividing the number of votes garnered by each party by 15,950,900, the total number of votes cast for party list candidates.

The SC said there are two steps in the second round of seat allocation. First, the percentage is multiplied by the remaining available seats, 38, which is the difference between the 55 maximum seats reserved under the party list system and the 17 guaranteed seats of the "two-percenters."

"The whole integer of the product of the percentage and of the remaining available seats corresponds to a party’s share in the remaining available seats. Second, we assign one party list seat to each of the parties next in rank until all available seats are completely distributed. We distributed all of the remaining 38 seats in the second round of seat allocation," the SC said.

"Finally, we apply the three-seat cap to determine the number of seats each qualified party list candidate is entitled," the SC added.

Applying the procedure of seat allocation, there are 55 party list representatives from the 36 winning party list organizations, the Court ruled.

The SC, on the other hand, affirmed its previous ruling in Veterans Federation Party v. Comelec disallowing major political parties from participating in party list elections.

However, because the formula in Veterans has flaws in its mathematical interpretation of the term "proportional representation," the SC felt compelled to revisit the formula for the allocation of additional seats to party list organizations.

The Court noted that since the 14th Congress of the Philippines has 220 district representatives, there should be 55 seats available to party list representatives to comply with the constitutional requirement of 20 percent of the total number of House membership (district seats plus party list seats).

Under the party list law, and the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission, major political parties may coalesce with certain sectors to be able to join in party list elections.

"However, by a vote of 8-7, the Court decided to continue the ruling in Veterans disallowing major political parties from participating in the party list elections, directly or indirectly.

Those who voted to continue disallowing major political parties from the party list elections joined Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno in his separate opinion.

"On the formula to allocate party list seats, the Court was unanimous in concurring with this ponencia," the Court said. MALAYA 04/21/2009

Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey: Arroyo's net negative 40 in Mindanao

Daily Tribune 03/17/2009

President Arroyo, who staked her claim for a mandate through the fraud-ridden 2004 elections by capturing the votes in the Visayas and Mindanao, is now overwhelmingly rejected in both regions with a net rating of net negative 33 in the Visayas and a net negative 40 in Mindanao, the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed.

The survey, conducted from last February 20 to 23, gave Mrs. Arroyo a net rating of negative 32 for the entire country after 59 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with her performance against only 26 percent expressing satisfaction.

The SWS nets out the periodic rating on Mrs. Arroyo’s performance by subtracting satisfied respondents from the dissatisfied.

Mrs. Arroyo’s latest rating was lower from a negative 24 (29 percent satisfied against 53 percent dissatisfied) during the last survey in December.

In September, the survey showed a net rating of negative 27 (27 percent satisfied, 54 percent dissatisfied) on Mrs. Arroyo. Her worst showing in the SWS survey was in July 2008 when she netted a negative 50.

In the Visayas, Mrs. Arroyo received a satisfactory vote of 28 percent against 61 percent who said they were dissatisfied in the latest survey. In the previous survey done in December, Mrs. Arroyo got a net rating of negative 14 or 38 percent satisfied against 52 percent dissatisfied.

In Mindanao, the SWS tallied 22 percent satisfied against 62 percent dissatisfied on Mrs. Arroyo in the February survey from a net rating of negative 22 (31 percent satisfied, 53 percent dissatisfied) in the most previous survey.

Dissatisfaction was highest in Metro Manila, where she received a net negative 44 points or 21 percent satisfied against 65 percent dissatisfied in the February survey.

The survey last December showed a worse net negative 45 rating or 19 percent satisfied against 65 percent dissatisfied in December.

In Luzon without Metro Manila, Mrs. Arroyo

received a net negative 24 performance rating or 29 percent satisfied against 54 percent dissatisfied from a net negative 23 or 27 percent satisfied against 50 percent dissatisfied in the December survey.

Mrs. Arroyo’s satisfaction rating among respondents in urban areas went to 26 percent in February from 27 percent in December, while dissatisfaction went to 58 percent from 56 percent during the same period putting her urban net rating at a net negative 32 from a net negative 29 earlier.

In the rural areas, Mrs. Arroyo did not fare any better with a net rating of negative 33 in February from a net negative 19 in December.

For the ABC social class, the SWS survey showed a net negative 19 or 27 percent satisfied against 46 percent dissatisfied in February from a net negative 28 in December.

Mrs. Arroyo was not better off with the so-called masa class or class D despite the various social programs her government initiated supposedly to improve the plight of the poor such as the conditional cash transfers.

Mrs. Arroyo performance rating hit a net negative 31 or 28 percent satisfied against 59 percent dissatisfied in the February survey from a net negative 21 or 30 percent satisfied against 51 percent dissatisfied in the December survey.

For class E, it went from bad, at net negative 31 in December, to worse at net negative 42 in the latest survey.

SWS said the latest survey interviewed 1,200 adults divided in random of 300 each in Metro Manila, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao with sampling error margins of plus or negative 3 percent for national percentages and plus or negative six percent for area percentages.

Contemplating- Poverty

About 30 million Filipinos living below the poverty-line hound the urban scene of modern-day Philippines. In the heart of Tondo, Manila, one can easily be acquainted with the images of destitute lives of thousands of men, women and children struggling amid the ever worsening situation.

Securities and Exchange Commission : Legacy’s pre-need firm anomaly

For claiming that she has no history of misdemeanor during her 53 years in public service, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairperson Fe Barin is being taunted by her critics who have unearthed a paper trail that involves a deal between her husband and one of the companies she regulates.

Documents made available to Newsbreak and ABS-CBN News showed that pre-need firm Legacy Consolidated Phils., Inc paid for the cost of transferring the ownership of a sports utility vehicle (SUV) previously owned by Alejandro Barin, the SEC chair’s husband.

A check voucher dated August 6, 2007 showed that Legacy’s pre-need firm issued a check to its assistant vice-president for administration, Agnes Santiago, to advance P5,400 for the cost of the transfer. (Santiago is one of the Legacy officers implicated by the regulators, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the SEC, in the syndicated estafa cases filed at the justice department).

The vehicle is a 1997 model of Mitsubishi Pajero that the internal Legacy Consolidated office memos referred to as “previously assigned to Atty. Alejandro Barin.”

The pre-need firm’s senior vice-president Christine Limpin, signed the internal memo authorizing the cash advance. According to ABS-CBN News’ research, Limpin is now the registered owner of the vehicle

One question nags: Why was Limpin able to source funds--however meager--for the purchase of a car from a company that has a fiduciary duty to its pre-need plan holders?

However, another question seems as important: Why was the SEC chair’s husband involved in a deal with a company that the chair regulates?
Regulator

The SEC chair oversees the pre-need industry, a retail financial services industry engaged in selling quasi insurance and investment products focused on funding planholders’ future needs for education, pension, and memorial.

In the wake of the revelations made at a Senate hearing last week that Jesus Martinez, one of the five SEC commissioners, received cash and a property from Legacy’s founder Celso de los Angeles, legislators have called for the resignation of all five SEC commissioners.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Senate Trade and Commerce committee head Mar Roxas specifically asked for Barin to tender her resignation for being remiss in regulating the pre-need industry.

In a press conference in Malacanang, however, SEC chair Barin said she has no intention of resigning. She stressed, "I will be 75 soon. I spent 53 years, more than half of my life, in government. I hope it will not end this way." She said she will carry on with her job and has no plans of stepping down or going on leave unless asked by President Arroyo herself.

In the continuing messy saga of the Legacy Group of financial service firms, the paper trail involving the Pajero deal puts Barin as the latest in the growing list of politicians and political appointees dragged in the efforts to follow the money in this multi-billion peso controversy.
No smoking gun

Unlike the paper trail that involved Martinez, however, the paper trail for the Pajero deal falls short of being a smoking gun.

In the Senate hearing last week, de los Angeles transferred a property in Parañaque City to the name of his son, Nicolo Martin, who in turn sold it to Martinez’s son. (In a media interview last week, Nicolo Martin tearfully denied being aware of the deal's implications. He said he just followed his father's instructions to sign the sale documents).

The timing of the transaction was questioned at the Senate since the sale between the sons of de los Angeles and Martinez occurred at a time when the three Legacy pre-need firms could not obtain a dealers license from a SEC unit that Martinez oversees.

Not long after the property sale, the Legacy pre-need firms were granted their dealers license in April 2008, essentially paving the way for the firms to amass more funds from the unknowing public.

This direct link was not as clear in the Pajero transaction involving Alejandro Barin, the SEC chair’s husband.

Mrs. Barin told ABS-CBN News that they owned the Pajero since 2001 and that she confronted her husband in 2007 when she learned that he sold it to Legacy’s officer, Limpin.

“When I came to know about the sale, I asked him why do you have to deal with them? You know that you are not supposed to deal with anyone who intends to do business with the SEC, so please lay off,” Mrs. Barin narrated. She added that Mr. Barin did not intercede in Legacy’s transactions in SEC.

There was no proof available that the Barin couple earned a handsome fee from the Pajero sale.

In 2007, around the time the Pajero sale occurred, Legacy Consolidated was one of the troubled pre-need firms that did not meet SEC’s requirements before the regulator renews their permits to continue operations.
Lubao

Atty. Alejandro Barin hails from Lubao, the hometown of President Arroyo.

In the late 1950’s, Mr. Barin was a junior associate at the law firm of President Arroyo’s father, Diosdado Macapagal. When the older Macapagal became president in the sixties, Mr. Barin declined the latter’s offer to join the cabinet, but he inherited the law firm’s big-time clients, including the rich Arroyo family.

In the seventies, Mr. Barin and Mike Arroyo, who eventually became President Gloria Arroyo’s husband, became partners in a law firm.

Mr. Barin is currently one of the commissioners at the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC). He was once the officer-in-charge until Zenaida G. Cruz-Ducut, another political appointee from Lubao town, took over as chairperson in July 2008

Mrs. Barin was the first to chair ERC when it was constituted in 2001. -- with Lynda Jumilla, ABS-CBN News (abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak)

Justice is for sale : Supreme Court Chief Justice P20-Million bribe money

MANILA, Philippines – A litigant in the citizenship case of Negros Oriental Rep. Jocelyn Limkaichong accused Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno of receiving P20 million in bribe money to favor the incumbent lawmaker.

Businessman Louis Biraogo on Tuesday said he received an anonymous email dated March 13, 2009 saying that the SC would refer the case to the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) to delay the court’s proceedings on the matter.

“This perpetuates the suspicion of the people that justice is for sale in this country. In fact, Chief Justice Puno was given P20 million worth of reasons for pressuring the new ponente, Justice [Diosdado] Peralta to dismiss the Supreme Court cases and send it to HRET," a portion of the email read.

Biraogo provided the media with copies of the email in a press conference.

Asked for comment, SC spokesman Jose Midas Marquez, who is also Puno’s chief of staff, said they would like to see a copy of the anonymous letter first before making a statement to the media.

“I understand he distributed a letter to the media. Haven’t seen the letter yet," Marquez said in a text message to GMANews.TV.

It was Biraogo who had earlier accused Puno of sitting on the Limkaichong case, an allegation that triggered widespread rumors of alleged moves to oust the chief justice in January 2009.

In 2008, Biraogo obtained a leaked copy of the unpromulgated ruling on Limkaichong’s case. After an investigation, the SC ruled that retired Justice Ruben Reyes, the case’s former ponente, was responsible for the premature release of the confidential document.

Biraogo had earlier said “a concerned court employee" gave him the leaked copy of the draft ruling.

In Tuesday’s press conference, Biraogo said he believed in the credibility of the email’s anonymous sender, saying the copy of the ruling he obtained matched with the SC’s draft decision

The case against Limkaichong, who is accused of not being a natural-born Filipino citizen, remains pending at the SC.

In 2008, the SC deferred the promulgation on the ruling because nine of the 14 justices who signed the ruling concurred only “in the result." An “in the result" concurrence refers to agreeing to a decision on a case alone, and not on the arguments on which a decision was based on, thus, the ruling supposedly lacked doctrinal value. - with Carlo Lorenzo, GMANews.TV

World Bank: Miguel Arroyo Part of Bid-Rigging Syndicate

By Angie M. Rosales

Daily Tribune 02/25/2009

Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez knew all along that First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo and the late Sen. Robert Barbers were named in the World Bank (WB) “referral report” by witnesses who testified to the alleged collusive activities in bid-rigging of road projects in the country. This knowledge came as early as 2006.

She was also given additional information providing leads to the government in evidence-gathering, immediately after being furnished with the WB referral report, contrary to the claims she made before Senate investigators during a hearing into the WB mess last February 12 that she had received the documents only two days before her scheduled appearance in the upper chamber.

A copy of the referral report that the Ombudsman and the Department of Finance previously denied media access, clearly showed that WB findings on the bid-rigging allegations on the National Road Improvement and Management Program I (NRIMP-I) specifically identified Mr. Arroyo and Barbers as the two “Filipino public figures” who have participated in the collusive scheme.

An expanded list of contractors, more than the three local and four Chinese firms, were also named on the list.

Also included in the list were Public Works and Highways officials, former DPWH Secretary Florante Soriquez, Region IV-A Assistant Director Huillio “Boy” Belleza and a certain “Tito” Miranda.

“These names should not be disclosed publicly and should not be attributed to the World Bank as these names are only being provided by INT (World Bank’s Integrity division) to facilitate any potential

investigations conducted by your government into the disclosed matter,” the WB referral report stated.

Gutierrez was also notified by WB officials themselves who met up with her as early as May 2006, of the WB’s administrative fact-finding inquiry findings of allegations of fraud and corruption in the first phase of the national roads improvement and management project-1 (NRIMP-1), in which the Philippines was provided with a loan of $150 million, of which $133 million was released in March 2007.

This was gathered from the referral report, attached with the Nov. 13, 2007 letter by WB Director for Department of Institutional Integrity (INT) Suzanne Rich Folsom to Gutierrez, “hand-delivered” and labeled “strictly confidential” but were furnished to senators during a briefing yesterday afternoon, alongside with other documents – the decisions of the sanctions board, notice of sanctions proceedings and the NRIMP-1 evidence.

Top World Bank official in the Philippines on Tuesday told legislators it was up to the local authorities to prosecute firms the bank had banned for collusion in bidding for projects.

Country director Bert Hofman said the WB was mandated to make sure that its funds are used properly, stressing that its internal investigations and sanctions “ultimately protect the taxpayers’ money” of member countries.

He told a Senate panel investigating the scandal that the WB has already produced a “referral report” given to the finance department for possible follow up in investigating “whether Philippine laws have been broken.”

Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, who presided the meeting released to the public copies of the WB report after he, along with 14 other senators, signed a manifestation agreeing to release to the public all documents submitted to the committee during its Feb. 12 hearing into the rigging mess.

“This confirmed our earlier assertions that the Ombudsman played deaf and blind into these allegations,” he said.

Gutierrez however insisted that she had her office investigate this immediately “after we received the report from the WB. The only thing is that it was very difficult to investigate when the information given was too little and worse, could not be used,” she said, in her defense.

Although WB officials refused to delve into the “collusion” charges controversy, Roxas told reporters after the briefing that “they stood by their report and gave careful and detailed findings that led them to the issue of the debarment” or the blacklisting of three Filipino contractors.

WB officials, led by Hofman and communications officer David Theis whose previous position was spokesman for INT, regional chief counsel Anthony Toft and senior Communications officer Leonora Gonzales, pointed out to senators that one of the options the WB is considering if the government will not act on their reported rigged bidding is “not to the country lend anymore.”

Sen. Panfilo Lacson relayed this information in an interview, saying that the WB, in effect, issued a veiled threat to was what this struck him during the briefing when WB officials hinted at this.

“They said that if they see that the government will not lift a finger, will take no action on the information they provided us, one option is ‘not to lend (to us) anymore.’”

In page 4 of the said nine-page referral report, the names of Mr. Arroyo, labeled as the “husband of the President” and the deceased senator, were put under the heading “Filipino public figures” – whom witnesses, part of the more than 60 interviews the WB conducted in the course of its investigation, identified along with “contractors, Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) officials as having participated in the collusive scheme which was found to have occurred in the territory of the Philippines and therefore likely falls within its jurisdiction.”

“These names should not be disclosed publicly and should not be attributed to the WB as these names are only being provided by INT to facilitate any potential investigations conducted by your government into the disclosed matter,” the report said.

Findings indicated in the referral report said that the “INT investigation adduced evidence of the existence of a collusive scheme amongst the contractors, DPWH officials and public figures concerned in all three rounds of biddings related to the P1.4 billion and P1.6 billion contract packages under NRIMP-1.

“Numerous witnesses testified that a cartel existed in the Philippines, controlling bidding on road projects by international and local contractors. Over a dozen witnesses told INT that a well-organized cartel, managed by contractors and government officials, controls DPWH contract allocation and sets inflated contract prices on projects funded by the Bank and counterpart organizations. (Some of these witnesses themselves cartel participants, others were government officials.) according to these witnesses, Mr. Eduardo C. de Luna, president of EC De Luna, was at the center of the cartel,” the report said.

De Luna, one of the three blacklisted contractors, was alluded to in the Senate hearing on the matter as having close association with Mr. Arroyo.

In the referral report, it mentioned that after Department of Finance (DoF) Secretary Margarito Teves was provided a briefing in Washington D.C. by the WB-INT in April 2006 on the interim findings on bid riggings, Gutierrez followed suit.

“Subsequently in Manila, in May 2006, the Honorable Tanodbayan Ma. Merceditas N. Gutierrez, the Filipino Ombudsman, was briefed by the INT investigators on the methodology used by the INT in the courser of its investigation,” it also said.

Gutierrez made no mention of any briefing with WB during the Senate hearing.

Folsom, in her letter, even reminded Gutierrez on this matter, where the former also specifically told the Ombudsman the “Filipino government may wish, at its discretion, to use this Report as a basis for undertaking its own investigation into the allegations in order to determine whether any laws of the Philippines have been violated.”

“As you may recall, in May 2006, two members from my office, the department of INT, provided you with an oral briefing on the interim findings of an administrative fact-finding (the investigation) that we had conducted into the allegations of fraud and corruption in the first of the Philippines NRIMP-1.

“INT had briefed your office at that time, as the Filipino secretary of finance had indicated to us that your office would be leading any potential investigation into the matter on behalf of the Filipino government,” she said.

Folsom also told Gutierrez that their findings and conclusions in the report are based on their own rules and procedures and should not be used by the Philippine government as a basis for initiating any administrative, criminal or civil proceedings or even be cited in any further investigation.

The bank officials also assured Gutierrez that the “Bank would be amenable to a request for additional assistance from your government, save in that any further assistance provided would have to take into account the need for INT to protect the confidentiality of any sensitive witnesses and to respect any other possible constraints.”

The same report also mentioned that Gutierrez “undertook to conduct a criminal investigation into the matter” adding that Deputy Ombudsman Mark Jalandoni has been appointed to lead the investigation into whether or not any Filipino laws had been violated as a result of the bid-rigging uncovered by the INT investigation.

“So what happened from the time the referral report was given to them, to the DoF and then stamped received by the Ombudsman on Nov. 19? And then additional documents were sent to provide them additional information to further elucidate the referral report? That’s what we want to find out,” said Lacson.

“Who sat on it? If the WB sent those documents in November 2007 why was it she was claiming that she received it only two days before last Thursday’s hearing of the economic affairs committee?” he asked.

“By interest, I made mention to them (WB officials) the copy of the report that I have. These were in fact, snippets contained in the report, but they did not deny it.” he said.

Lacson said they will pursue this matter before the blue ribbon committee chaired by Sen. Richard Gordon where there is pending resolution on the criminal aspect in the WB mess.

“It’s difficult for me to answer for the Ombudsman because personally I feel she did not do her job. She was asked about it, her response was, it was an oral briefing, it was a briefing on the processes and the procedure, that this happened in Washington . This is the May 2006 briefing, this was according to her, it was oral, and therefore reading between the lines I think she assumed it was informal, that it was more on the process rather than on the leads, the findings, or the leads of the investigation. She implied that she was told or asked, “well don’t do too much because the process is still ongoing.” So, the interpretation was that she will not disturb the process because it might ruin the investigation,” Roxas, for his part, said in an interview.

Modus operandi in bid fixing

Bribery used to be a simple operation, the exclusive domain of contractors. They only have to bribe officials in exchange for a winning bid. Now, a well-entrenched Mafia--involving colluding government officials, lawmakers and favored firms--dictates who wins and loses in government projects.

Bidders and those who have first-hand knowledge of the wheeling and dealing in government contracts fleshed out to World Bank investigators how the anatomy of corruption works in the Philippines.

It is a scheme that bidders are forced to play, if they have to have an even chance of bagging a contract. Those who do not cooperate “are subject to elimination from bidding in future contracts.” This was the case of one foreign contractor in a public works project that refused to play the game. The foreign contractor was among those interviewed.

As detailed by those interviewed by the WB, in large government contracts, “ the process is completely fixed. Prices are determined, and winners and losers are determined, before the bidding even takes place.”

In the past, contractors would just obtain the approved budget contract (ABC) for a package by bribing officials within an agency. Then bidders would just arrange among themselves which contractor would bag the contract.

Politicians set the rules

But this time, it is now the politicians who set the rules. “Contractors engage in a sort of auction, where the contractor willing to pay the largest bribe can win the politician’s support,” one local contractor told WB probers. We got portions of the WB inquiry containing interviews with local and foreign contractors and a former government official.

Normally, one has to deal with politicians in both the national and local level—the former who controls the implementing agency and the latter, whose area is hosting the project. One former senator was known “to be very active in using his influence to further the collusive bid scheme.”

At this point, word of honor is not honored. The one who has the money reigns supreme. Bribe, preferably, should be given at once to seal any agreement.

It is also crucial to be in the favor of the ‘facilitator’ of the bidding manipulation, which bidders say is contractor Eduardo de Luna, owner and proprietor of the now-blacklisted E.C de Luna Construction Corp. for public works projects. Contractors interviewed by WB says de Luna has connections in the public works department who are part of the cartel.

At least two WB witnesses identified them as Public Works assistant regional director for Region 4 Huillio Belleza and one Tito Miranda, supposedly assigned at the DPWH-Philippine-Japan Highway Loan Project Management Office, as members of the Mafia.

We tried to get in touch with Belleza and Miranda but they were out of office as of this writing.

SOP and sham bidding

Several witnesses told WB probers that de Luna enjoys the backing of First Gentleman Miguel “Mike” Arroyo. De Luna, they say, acts as Mr. Arroyo’s go-between in foreign assisted projects.

One contractor said E.C de Luna is so powerful that it controls most of the bidding at the Department of Public Works and Highways. The WB source said it was through E.C. de Luna operations that China Geo Engineering Corp., China Road and Bridge Corp, and China Wu Yi Co. Ltd., three of the blacklisted firms by the WB, won the bidding for WB-funded projects. The source had predicted that these three Chinese would win the bids before the tender offers were opened.

Once the ‘winning’ firm has been identified with the blessing of the cartel, the sham bidding begins. Designated ‘losing’ bidders, in collusion with the syndicate, complete the charade.

The previous standard operating procedure (SOP) was for the ‘winning’ bidder’ to provide three percent of the advance payment for the project to the losing bidders. SOP to the politicians is also taken from the advance payment. One former public works secretary was also reported to be on the take.

But recently, the practice is to split a percentage of the advance payment between the politicians and the intermediary. A lawmaker who acts as sponsor to the bidder gets 15-20 percent of the project value while local officials share between 2-3 percent. The intermediary is responsible for the share of the losing bidders.

'No one can stop it'

The kickback is nothing to scoff at. Total payoff, according to the local contractor, ranges from 15-27 % of the total value of the contract. This does not include up to 20 percent in “unnecessary costs added to the project,” a former government official with intimate knowledge of bidding in the public works told the WB’s Integrity Vice Presidency unit. The “unnecessary costs” are mean to cover the costs incurred for the bribe.

Expectedly, all payments are in cash. “Company books do not reflect any of these payments in any event, because the books are faked to avoid taxes, ” said a local contractor.

The former government official supported this assertion, adding that bribery extends to internal revenue officials to keep the company’s financial books above board.

In essence, one confidential witness, also a contractor, told WB probers, is that “the corruption involvement in this bidding is extensively from FG (First Gentleman and congressmen to DPWH officers and contractors. No one has the ability to stop it.”
ABS-CBN/Newsbreak
as of 02/03/2009 4:16 PM

Militarization in GMA government

Solons warn vs. military control

Say GMA moves could be prelude to martial law

SENATORS yesterday questioned what they called "creeping militarization" in government with the appointment of retired and controversial generals, and warned that the moves could be a prelude to declaration of martial law or emergency rule.
"Para sa milyong Pilipino na walang tiwala sa administrasyon, ang ibig sabihin nito’y pinaliligiran na ni GMA ang sarili niya ng mga taong walang kwestiyon sa anumang iligal na utos mula sa Pangulo. Martial law na ba ang kasunod nito?" said Sen. Mar Roxas.
Sen. Francis Pangilinan said the appointments of retired generals could be part of President Arroyo’s plan to consolidate her power base.
"What is her power base? The base is no longer the Filipino people in that sense because almost eight out of 10 are disappointed. So, if the people no longer trust the President, where will she get her support? She is getting it now from the active and retired military men. She’s getting it from the Armed Forces," he said.
Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said the latest assignments are proof of what he called the awesome influence, if not control, that some generals wield over the Arroyo government.
Tirso Danga, a former vice admiral, has been appointed to head the National Printing Office which prints government forms and documents including election returns and ballots.
He was one of the key figures in the 2005 "Hello Garci" controversy along with former peace adviser Hermogenes Esperon.
Esperon, a former AFP chief, has been tapped to replace Cerge Remonde as director of the Presidential Management Staff (PMS). Remonde will be press secretary effective Feb. 1.
The PMS is tasked with managing the development and formulation of projects and policies of the Office of the President.
Avelino Razon, a former PNP chief and mistah of Esperon in PMA Class 1974, is new peace adviser.
Jovito Palparan, a former major general in the Army, is being groomed for a position at the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency or Dangerous Drugs Board.
Palparan has been blamed by militants for the extra-judicial killings and disappearances of political activists reported since 2001.
Roxas expressed deep suspicions on the move of Arroyo to appoint Danga.
"Sa pag-appoint ni GMA kay Danga sa NPO ay lalo lang tumindi ang suspetsa natin na walang balak si GMA na gawing malinis ang susunod na halalan," Roxas said.
Roxas said Danga’s appointment to NPO could be Plan B if President Arroyo and her allies in Congress fail to ram through Charter change through a Constituent Assembly.
"Hindi pa nga nasasagot ni Admiral Danga ang mga tanong sa kanyang naging papel sa kaso ng Hello Garci ay eto at siya pa ang ilalagay sa ahensyang gagawa ng mga balota para sa eleksyon. Talagang garapalan na ang ginagawa ng Malacanang," he said.
"What assurance do we have that this is not a plot to manipulate the printing of ballots for the 2010 elections for the benefit of the administration? None, given this administration’s black record of cheating, stealing and lying," Roxas said.
Pimentel said instead of resurrecting Palparan’s career, President Arroyo should pursue his criminal prosecution.
"We cannot tolerate a situation where suspects in drug-related offenses will just disappear or be found floating in the Pasig River," Pimentel said.
"I believe that it would be better for the Arroyo government to drop its plan to name Palparan as a chief enforcer of our drug laws. It is like putting a hammer and knocking it against one’s head," he said.
Pimentel questioned the qualifications of Esperon for the PMS post.
He noted that during Esperon’s stint as peace adviser, peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front suffered a setback when the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain was voided by the Supreme Court for being unconstitutional.
LESSER PERSONS
Remonde defended the appointment and nominees of retired military and police officials in the Cabinet.
"It is unfair to discriminate against former military generals, I mean are they lesser persons? Are they lesser qualified because they are former generals?"
Retired military officials in government are Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita; Arturo Carillo, military affairs adviser; Honesto Isleta, presidential assistant on strategic information; Glenn Rabonza, Office of the Civil defense executive director and national disaster coordinating council administrator; Angel Atutubo, Manila International Airport Authority assistant general manager; Thelmo Cunanan, chairman of the Social Security System; and Proceso Maligalig, head of Bataan Shipyard.
Retired police generals are Razon; Arturo Lomibao, incoming LTFRB chief; Edgar Aglipay, chair of the Philippine Retirement Agency; Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., public works secretary; Leandro Mendoza, transportation and communications secretary; and Roberto Lastimoso, director of Metro Rail Transit Corp.
Former AFP chiefs of staff in government are Angelo Reyes, secretary of energy; Narciso Abaya, chair of Bases Conversion Development Authority; Dionisio Santiago, PDEA director;
Roy Cimatu, special envoy to Middle East; Efren Abu, ambassador to Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines-East Asia growth Area (BIMP-EAGA); and Generoso Senga, ambassador to Iran.
Other uniformed officials who have been appointed are Orlando Macaspac, presidential adviser for police affairs; Florencio Fianza, former chairman of the Philippine Racing Commission; Vidal Querol, ambassador to Indonesia; and Ernesto de Leon, ambassador to Australia.
Remonde dismissed observations that the appointment of some uniformed officials is in anticipation of a declaration of martial law, or even a possible term extension for Arroyo, saying it is an "over reaction" and a "very convenient boogeyman" being raised by critics. – With Jocelyn Montemayor MALAYA

Millions of dollars in funding support appear to have been wasted

By Aries Rufo, abs-cbnNEWS.com, Newsbreak | 01/07/2009 3:11 PM


Millions of dollars in funding support appear to have been wasted as corruption in the Philippines progressively worsened in the past two years, a Millennium Challenge Corp. evaluation report showed.

The worsening status of corruption, which was noted in 2007 and 2008 by the MCC, “raises questions about the efficacy” of MCC-funded anti-corruption programs of the Ombudsman amounting to millions of dollars, the report said. The MCC is a US government-owned corporation managing the Millennium Challenge Account aimed at helping governments lick corruption.

Ironically, the increase in the level of corruption was noted just as funding support poured. In late 2006, the Philippines received a $6 million grant from the MCC because of its high percentile ranking in control of corruption indicator. The country is eligible for a total amount of $21 million from the MCC.

Before the MCC account, the Ombudsman also got a huge grant from the EU for anti-corruption programs.

But from 76th percentile in 2006, the country’s ranking dipped to 57th percentile in 2007 and 47th percentile in 2008.

In March 2008, the MCC, during an assessment, noted the slide in 2007 and it “raised concern over the fragility of the Philippines’ control of corruption score.” Just the same, the MCC declared the Philippines eligible for another round of large-scale funding from the MCC.

Such decision created an “awkward situation” for the MCC Board, the report said, as later development showed.

With the further decline in the Philippines’ score in 2008, the evaluation report said the MCC’s initial concerns “now appear to have been justified.” It further noted that the release of grant “coincided with the weakening of the corruption score.”

It was thus of no surprise when the country flunked the MCC’s fiscal year 2009 report, which denied the Philippines a new round of funding.
Aside from failing grades in control of corruption (47 percent), the country also failed in health expenditures (19 percent) and primary education (32 percent).

To be eligible for the funding assistance, developing countries must demonstrate a commitment to policies that promote political and economic freedom, investments in education and health, control of corruption, and respect for civil liberties and the rule of law.

The MCC account is not the only foreign-funded program implemented by the Ombudsman which got a failing grade. During the time of Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo, the Office of the Ombudsman got a 2.9 million euro grant from the European Union to finance the Improving Governance to Reduce Poverty program.

But our sources in the Ombudsman said that since Gutierrez came into office in Nov. 2005, the funding support has been “drastically decreased due to incompetence.” But Alistair Macdonald, head of the delegation of the European Commission to the Philippines, in an earlier interview said the EU is still set to review the programs it had funded including the anti-corruption projects in collaboration with the Ombudsman.

The slash in foreign support came as various surveys confirmed the worsening corruption. The Political and Economic Risk Consultancy survey has tagged the Philippines as number 1 in corruption in Asia while Transparency International’s 2008 perception index placed the Philippines in the bottom quarter of 180 countries surveyed.

as of 01/07/2009 3:11 PM

RP NOW SEEN AS MORE CORRUPT THAN INDONESIA

RP NOW SEEN AS MORE CORRUPT THAN INDONESIA
$1 trillion in bribes paid each year

SINGAPORE - To understand the challenge faced by emerging Southeast Asian economies struggling to shake off a corrosive culture of corruption, you can start by counting the parking tickets issued to foreign diplomats in Manhattan.
The league table of the worst parking offenders in New York embassies tells the same story as other methods economists have used to gauge countries’ propensity for corruption — many Asian nations fare very poorly in upholding the rule of law.
And the fact national corruption patterns persist even among diplomats in a foreign city suggests that a solution requires more than just better law enforcement — it needs fundamental institutional reform and a wholesale change in attitudes.
"You cannot fight corruption just by fighting corruption," said Daniel Kaufmann, who spearheaded the World Bank’s efforts to improve the study of governance and the rule of law, and who estimates that $1 trillion of bribes are paid every year.
Evidence showed there was little to be gained from "yet another anti-corruption campaign, the creation of more commissions and ethics agencies, and the incessant drafting of new laws, decrees, and codes of conduct," he said, adding that "fundamental and systemic governance reforms" were needed instead.
Economists who specialize in governance say combating corruption is not just a moral imperative — it is essential for promoting long-term economic growth and investment.
That means economies like Singapore and Hong Kong, which have successfully sought to crack down on corruption, have received real economic benefits in return. And southeast Asia’s laggards have driven investors away because of their poor reputation.
"International capital flows are strongly affected by corruption," said Johann Graf Lambsdorff, professor at the University of Passau and creator of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). "Capital flows into countries that have a reputation of limiting corruption."
There is no objective way of measuring corruption. Most methods of ranking countries rely on tracking perceptions, and two of the most widely followed — Kaufmann’s World Governance Indicators for the World Bank, and Transparency International’s CPI — aggregate several surveys to produce a composite rating.
They paint a remarkably consistent picture of southeast Asia.
Singapore is the clear leader in the region according to all surveys. At the opposite end of the scale, Myanmar is among the world’s most corrupt countries — of 180 nations ranked by Transparency International, only Somalia rates worse.
Of the emerging economies that most interest investors, Malaysia has a clear advantage — the World Bank indicators gave it a 2007 score of 62.3, above Thailand on 44.0, Vietnam on 28.0, Indonesia on 27.1 and the Philippines on 22.2. Transparency International’s CPI ranks the countries in the same order.
Economists say a host of data supports the theory there is a "development dividend" for countries that tackle corruption.
"We estimate that a country that improves its governance from a relatively low level to an average level could almost triple the income per capita of its population in the long term, and similarly reduce infant mortality and illiteracy," Kaufmann said.
Lambsdorff said there was convincing evidence that not only foreign direct investment but also portfolio investment was affected by corruption, with studies showing that stock markets outperformed in countries that successfully reduced corruption.
"International investors are more confident of a country, or consider the country to be less risky so don’t seek such a risk premium to invest in a country," he said.
Economists agree that tightening the law is not enough to defeat corruption. Often what is required is a full overhaul of governance and institutions, and a transformation of attitudes.
The New York parking ticket study supports this thesis. In a 2006 paper, Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel of the US National Bureau of Economic Research collected data on $18 million in unpaid parking fines issued to diplomats between 1997 and 2002.
"The act of parking illegally fits well with the standard definition of corruption, the abuse of entrusted power for private gain," they wrote. Kuwait was the worst offender with 246.2 violations per diplomat. Indonesia had southeast Asia’s biggest tally with 36.1, followed by Thailand with 24.5.
And overall, the parking ticket ranking showed remarkable correlation with more conventional measures of corruption.
"Norms related to corruption are apparently deeply ingrained, and factors other than legal enforcement are important determinants of corruption behavior," Fisman and Migel said.
This raises the question of whether gains in tackling corruption take years or even generations to achieve.
Kaufmann said short-term gains were not impossible: "While it is true that institutions often change only gradually, in some countries there has been a sharp improvement in the short term."
Indonesia ranked among the world’s most corrupt nations five years ago but now outperforms the Philippines in most rankings — a major step forward given the importance of country comparisons in influencing investment decisions.
But perhaps the key finding of economists’ work in measuring corruption is the bleak discovery that there has been no clear trend toward gradually defeating it, either in Asia or globally.
"In spite of improvements in some countries, there have been at least as many countries where deterioration has taken place," Kaufmann said in a World Bank report. "The quality of governance around the world has been stagnant." – Reuters

Arroyo gov’t spent P36 billion in unauthorized expenditures in 2007

By Gemma Bagayaua, abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak

Critics preparing next year’s impeachment complaint against Pres. Arroyo may want to consider this: the administration spent over P36 billion in 2007, well above the sum approved by Congress for that year. This amount excludes funds they were not able to release in agency budgets including those transferred to over-all savings.

This is the finding in a budget study conducted by the International Center for Innovation, Transformation, and Excellence in Government (INCITEGov), a group of former senior Arroyo government officials who are critical of the administration. Former Arroyo budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin led the study.

The group examined sums spent and allocated by the national government in 2007 using the 2009 National Expenditure Program (NEP, the budget proposal the president sends Congress annually) as key reference.

What enabled the government to exceed its budget limits, according to Boncodin, is the fact that the budget for 2007 was approved late—after the fiscal year has already started. This gave the administration the power to reenact portions of the 2006 budget to finance government expenditures from January to March 2007.

When the 2007 budget was finally approved, however, the administration also used up the entire year’s appropriations, in addition to the reenacted portion of the 2006 budget that it used in the first quarter.

The 2009 NEP, for instance, showed that in 2007, the defense department’s Office of the Secretary (DND - OSec) was allowed to reenact practically its entire 2006 budget (around P592 million).

New General Appropriations for the DND – Osec in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for 2007 (RA 9401) was only P576 million. But the reenactment of the 2006 budget allowed its available appropriations for 2007 to balloon to P1.286 billion. Of this amount, the DND – Osec spent P985 million—well in excess of the budget Congress authorized it to spend for that year.

Without the reenacted budget, the total available appropriations for the unit should have only been around P694 million. This already includes other appropriation sources made available to the unit for that year. In fact, for 2009, the total proposed obligations for the DND-Osec is only P532 million, according to the NEP.

This is true across almost all of the departments, Boncodin said. In some cases, departments even reenacted more than the equivalent of a quarter of the 2006 budget. "This is untenable," she said.

The Constitution provides that in cases when Congress fails to pass a budget law, the budget for the previous year is automatically reenacted. This practice, however, is a wrong interpretation of the constitutional mandate, according to Boncodin.

Since Congress eventually approved RA 9401 (2007 budget), the administration should have used it to determine spending limits. To avoid exceeding its authorized budget, the administration should have considered the re-enacted portion of 2006 budget as “advances” on the 2007 budget. This meant the amount spent for the first quarter of the year should have been deducted from the sum government agencies were allowed to spend for the entire year.

Budget authority given by Congress under the GAA, Boncodin pointed out, is good for one fiscal year. “A fiscal year is supposed to be 12 months. You cannot use the entire budget given for 2007 in just 9 months.”

To prevent similar incidents from happening in the future, Boncodin advised Congress to add a new provision in the budget law that prohibits the adding of reenacted appropriations to the current appropriations as this violates the one-fiscal-year concept of the general appropriations law.

Alternatively, Congress should pass a resolution in the event of failure to enact new appropriations.

Moreover, Boncodin said, Congress should make it a point to always approve a new budget on time, before the beginning of the fiscal year. “If the president fails to submit a budget (30 days after the State of the Nation Address), it can be a ground for impeachment,” she pointed out.

If the Constitution puts that much stress on the executive’s responsibility to submit a budget proposal on time, Congress should take it upon itself to give as much importance to approving the budget on time as well.
as of 12/11/2008 4:47 PM