Bishops-led march on to oust Arroyo

Daily Tribune 11/30/2008
By Riza Recio and Pat C. Santos

Tagged as “pied pipers” by Malacañang, Catholic bishops who called for an uprising to remove President Arroyo from power said they are keen to continue their campaign, adding they will not be deterred by Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez’s threat of sedition charges when they lead today a people’s protest in Caloocan City.
The mass action today, to be led by Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias, Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez, the Kilusang Makabansang Ekonomiya (KME) and participated in by labor and cause-oriented groups, will primarily call for the public to block efforts of Mrs. Arroyo’s allies in the House of Representatives to amend the Constitution.
The revived Charter change (Cha-cha) attempt is being billed by the Palace and Mrs. Arroyo’s House allies as a measure to amend economic provisions in the Constitution but it is widely seen as an effort to further extend the term of Mrs. Arroyo which will end in 2010.
The bishops said they are unfazed by Gonzalez’s threats to file sedition charges against them.
Tobias and Iñiguez yesterday said they are open to “extra-legal” means to oust Mrs.Arroyo.
“We are already used to the threat of the old secretary of injustice. We will just wait what he will do,” said Tobias.
The 67-year-old bishop also warned Malacañang allies in Congress over their aggressiveness to push Charter Change, saying that it could fuel fury among the public.
In Thursday’s press conference, he said the moves for constitutional amendments despite the lack of public support just show the “real color of the administration.”
Invoking a Biblical passage that supposedly orders people “to fear and honor duly constituted authorities” Malacañang said the bishops are making “reckless and irresponsible” acts.
Deputy presidential spokesman Anthony Golez Jr. called Iñiguez and Tobias “pied pipers” for what he called as their acts on influencing the public to sympathize with them in searching for extra-legal means to oust Mrs. Arroyo.
Golez said the two bishops violated Biblical teachings in particular the Book of Romans Chapter 13 which supposedly told the faithful “to fear and honor the duly-constituted authority”.
“It is foremost that all bishops who are encouraging our people to resort to extra-constitutional means can be likened to the pied piper blowing their flute to innocent children and leading them to drown in the river” said Golez.
The Pied Piper is a mythical character who supposedly led hundreds of children to drown to retaliate against townsfolk who withheld payments for his previous service of ending a rat infestation.
Tobias said that the whole Catholic Church is heading for a consensus in calling for the ouster of Mrs. Arroyo.
“Masyado ng garapal kaya papunta na diyan. Papunta na diyan na magkakasama-sama kami (Their brazenness have become too much. We are all heading in one direction),” Tobias said.
Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales told an assembly at St. Paul’s College in Manila that “self-serving public servants exploit the ignorant poor.”
“The worst possible scenario is where people approach the poor not to help but to take advantage of them,” Rosales added.
There are more bishops now (who are joining the call for Mrs. Arroyo to step down). I’m very sure the initial five (who called for a new government) and the others like us are growing,” Tobias furthered.
Such was the case, he added, during the Martial Law years, when the religious leaders in the Philippines all expressed opposition to the continued stay of then-president Ferdinand Marcos.
Last month, Lagdameo along with Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, Masbate Bishop Joel Baylon, Balanga Bishop Socrates Villegas and Legazpi Bishop emeritus Jose Sorra, called on the public to start preparing for a new government to remove the present one that is riddled with massive corruption.
Some bishops, who are known to be friendly with Malacañang, however, tried to downplay the statement of the five bishops saying this does not represent the CBCP as a body.
Golez said the Palace had no plans on what measures to implement when the bishops lead today’s mass action.
It would depend on the action that the Department of Justice would be implementing related to this recent development, Golez said.
Gonzalez had said the DoJ would be monitoring any clear violation of the Revised Penal Code pertaining to rebellion and inciting to sedition of the rallyists.
Golez added with the country reeling from the current global crisis, the people would be unlikely to support any destabilization effort.
Malacañang, however, ordered police forces to exercise maximum tolerance on today’s mass actions.
In preparation for the mass protest, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the National Capital Region Police Office will be on full alert tomorrow, according to the Palace.
AFP spokesperson Leopoldo Batawil said the armed forces has been coordinating with the AFP National Capital Region Command and the Region IV-A and Region III in order to ensure peace and order during today’s protest action.
The AFP has called on the protesters to stage rallies within the designated freedom parks and to ensure banning of bringing guns among rallyists.
The rallyists are also expected to protest the rushed junking of the impeachment case against Mrs. Arroyo, the fourth in so many years.
The impeachment bid was junked by the House committee on justice after two days of deliberations ruling that it was insufficient in substance. The impeachment case will be debated in the plenary tomorrow.
Gabriela Women’s Party Representative Liza Maza Saturday scored Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales for threatening two Catholic Bishops on “inciting to rebellion” cases for their critical stand against the Arroyo administration.
“It is so unbecoming of Gonzales to utter such statements. He should learn to respect the viewpoints of people who chose not to be gagged and fooled by the Arroyo administration,” said Maza.
“The Bishops’ call is valid and in no way impedes the constitutional right of anyone; rather it is a solid exercise of our basic right for expression and redress and to demand for accountability from our public officials, more so from the highest position in the country.”
“It appears that the allies of the Arroyo administration are guilty of hiding the truth, They might have killed the impeachment complaint but they will never succeed in thwarting our civil liberties,” she added.
The Gabriela solon further encouraged the people to be more vigilant against all the schemes of the Arroyo administration now that its “Charter Change express” had been exposed.
“It is high time for us Filipinos to unite against the evils in Malacañang. We can never allow the culture of greed, violence, and corruption to thrive further and consequently poison the minds of our children.” Charlie V. Manalo

Anti-Impeachment Payola

Gloria allies line up for P.5M impeach kill prize

Daily Tribune By Charlie V. Manalo and Gerry Baldo
11/26/2008
It’s a cool P500,000 for each of the congressional allies of President Arroyo in exchange for their killing of the impeachment complaint that will be voted upon today at the justice committee, as congressmen found out for themselves yesterday while P500,000 in bundles of P1,000 and P500 bills was being distributed by a Palace ally at the Linden Suites yesterday.
“It’s all over. The congressmen have been paid again — for ‘a job well done’ for Gloria Arroyo,” an opposition congressman who knew about the Linden Suites payoff by Malacañang tipped off the Tribune late afternoon yesterday.
Several congressmen were seen at the Linden Suites, witnesses also confirmed to the Tribune.
But Malacañang, despite the payoffs to congressmen-allies to kill the impeachment complaint, played innocent, as the Palace yesterday challenged the House to resume the hearing on the impeachment case.

Business leaders join 5 Catholic bishops, call for 'new governance'

Business leaders join 5 Catholic bishops, call for 'new governance'
by CARMELA FONBUENA, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak

The country’s top business groups—the Makati Business Club (MBC) and the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP)—on Thursday issued a statement supporting the earlier call of five Catholic church leaders for a “new government.”
Echoing the five bishops’ statement that “the time to prepare a new government in now”, the business groups’ said: “We should now prepare for a new kind of governance.”
“We support the call of the five senior bishops led by Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo that the time for radical reforms to rebuild our country economically, socially and politically, and to conquer complacency, cynicism and apathy, is now,” the business groups said.
Lagdameo is the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). Others who joined him in calling for a new government were: Balanga Bishop Socrates Villegas, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, Masbate Bishop Joel Baylon, and Legazpi Bishop-Emeritus Jose Sorra.
Among the members of MBC and MAP are the chief executive officers, chief operating officers, and top business executives of the country’s largest and most profitable corporations.
When the bishops made the call in October, they were criticized by administration allies for being “seditious.” Among them was Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, who interpreted the bishops’ statement as a call for the removal of President Arroyo.
When asked about the possibility that their statement may be interpreted as seditious, MBC executive director Alberto Lim told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak, “We don’t mean to be seditious.”
Unabated Corruption
Like the bishops, the business groups also condemned the unabated corruption in government.
“Corruption is bad for business growth, employment and long-term survival. It worsens poverty, steals from the poor, compromises public order and safety, mocks the rule of law, encourages bureaucratic inefficiency, and destroys society's moral fabric,” the statement said.
“The dishonor of being the most corrupt in Asia and one of the worst in the world compels us to join the call for redemption,” it added.
When the Church made their statement in October, former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn “Jocjoc” Bolante was about to be deported to the Philippines.
Critics of President Arroyo urged Bolante to testify on the P728-million fertilizer fund that was allegedly misused to help finance President Arroyo’s election campaign in 2004.
Bolante has repeatedly denied this in congressional hearings. “There is no fertilizer fund scam,” he said at the House hearing last Tuesday.
The business groups lamented how no one has been made accountable for the high-profile corruption cases involving government officials.
“Suspects are, in fact, perceived as being protected and even rewarded. We cannot understand government's inability or refusal to wield its vast powers to prosecute the accused,” the statement said.
“We’ve been wanting to catch a big fish,” Lim said in a phone interview. “We regret that the big fish was let go,” he added, referring to the parole President Arroyo granted former President Estrada, who was convicted by the Sandiganbayan for plunder.
Early this year, at the height of the National Broadband Network (NBN)-ZTE Corp. deal controversy, some MBC members, including its chairman—Phinma’s Ramon del Rosario Jr.—joined calls for President Arroyo’s resignation.
MBC also supported in 2001 the successful ouster move against former President Joseph Estrada.
JIL, too
The business groups also called on President Arroyo, senators and congressmen to “demonstrate their patriotism and have the courage to use the remaining 18 months of their term to do what is right for our country and our people.”
They also called on religious leaders, other business groups, and civil society to throw their support behind the bishops and told them “to not only speak out against wrongdoing but also do something about it.”
The Jesus Is Lord (JIL) movement’s Coalition for National Transformation is also a signatory to the MBC and MAP statement.

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P172M of fertilizer fund seen as laundered

P172M of fertilizer
fund seen as laundered
Bank accounts link Joc Joc to foundations

Malaya By AMADO P. MACASAET

THE Court of Appeals has affirmed a decision of a Makati regional trial court ordering the freeze of 70 accounts amounting to P172 million which the Anti-Money Laundering Council has said "were found to be a part of a related web of accounts connected with the infamous fertilizer fund scam."
Involved in the alleged money laundering are Jocelyn "Joc Joc" Bolante, former undersecretary of agriculture, Livelihood Corp., two foundations and two officials of Livecor.
The resolution, promulgated Oct. 21, 2008, was penned by associate justice PA Abarintos of the CA’s First Division and concurred in by Conrado M. Vazquez Jr., presiding justice, and Lucas P. Bersamin, associate justice. It was a unanimous decision.
The records of the CA show that in just 15 months, Livelihood Corp. transferred P172 million to a foundation called Molugan.
The Anti-Money Laundering Council discovered that the accounts of the people involved are practically all closed.
The CA resolution states that Bolante, then undersecretary of agriculture, had 23 accounts. Twenty of these accounts were kept in the Bank of the Philippine Islands.
Initial investigation made by the Anti-Money Laundering Council "disclosed that questionable accounts were made involving the accounts of Livelihood Corp. (Livecor), Molugan Foundation, the Assembly of Gracious Samaritans Foundation (AGS), Samuel Bombeo, and Ariel Panganiban."
The resolution does not mention where the money in the accounts of Livecor came from. It transferred twice from its account P40 million and P38 million to the account of Molugan.
All told, Livecor transferred in a 15-month period a total of P172 million to the Molugan account.
(An Internet search yielded no mention of Molugan Foundation or Assembly of Gracious Samaritans except in news reports relating to the frozen accounts.)
There has been dizzying series of fund transfers as shown by the resolution which states that on, April 2, 2004 using the same Livecor transferred P40 million to the account of AGS.
In turn, again on April 30, 2004, a similar amount of P38 million was transferred by AGS to Molugan.
The CA affirmed the findings of the executive judge of Makati regional trial court.
The findings, based on submissions of the AMLC, also state that on April 30, 2004, "Livecor again transferred P20 million to Molugan; that on May 23, 2004 P39,800,000 and on July 19, 2005, another P39.8 million were transferred by Livecor to Molugan."
The CA resolution noted that "during the relevant period (about 15 months in 2004 and part of 2005), Bolante was the acting chairman of Livecor; Samuel Bombeo, on the other hand, was president, treasurer, secretary of Livecor.
The resolution of the CA noted that Bombeo was also the sole signatory for the checking accounts of Livecor, Molugan, AGS, Samuel Bombeo and Ariel Panganiban which are related to the infamous fertilizer fund scam.
Thus, the Makati Court allowed the AMLC to freeze the various accounts, all 70 of them, including those of former undersecretary Bolante.
The CA resolution confirmed the findings of the Makati Court that the series of transfers are "part of the related web of accounts used in the fertilizer scam and were materially linked to the initially discovered accounts of Livecor, Molugan, AGS, Samuel Bombeo and Panganiban.
Bolante sought the lifting of the freeze of his accounts saying that the petition of the AMLC did not have basis.
He told the court that in his memorandum-manifestation "that the suspicious transactions… occurred sometime in April 2004 up to July 2005" when he was not its acting chairman.
He also said he ceased to be a member of the board of Livecor as of Feb. 1, 2003.
Livecor’s own lawyer, Adonis Edgard Angelo Macam, attested to Bolante’s claim.
That’s 14 months prior to the initial transaction of Livecor.
Bolante also said in relation to his account with the PNB that in six board meetings from 14 Sept. 2001 to Oct. 25, 2002, he "merely presided as officer and did not act as chairman.
The CA debunked Bolante’s claim and declared that "the arguments advanced by Livecor and Jocelyn Bolante that the latter was not chairman of the board of Livecor and that he ceased to be a member of the board of Livecor effective Feb. 1, 2003, more than 14 months prior to the initial transactions…of Livecor…is contradicted by the result of the investigation conducted by the result of the investigation conducted by the by the secretariat’s compliance and investigation staff of the anti-money laundering council which disclosed that the questionable transactions were made involving the accounts the of Livercor, Molugan, the assembly of gracious Samaritans, Samuel Bombeo and Ariel Panganiban."
The CA declared it believes "…that these hundreds of millions of pesos was the money reportedly to have been released to the Department of Agriculture upon the request of then undersecretary Bolante allegedly to fund the governments Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) to help alleviate the plight of the Filipino farmers all over the country."
The CA also declared that the report of a Senate committee "confirmed that said program resulted in a fertilizer fund scam, the brains and implementor of which is Jocelyn Bolante."

40% of funds for 2 subsidy programs did not reach poor: WB report

40% of funds for 2 subsidy programs did not reach poor: WB report

by LALA RIMANDO, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 11/14/2008 8:36 PM
More than 40 percent of the funds intended for two existing subsidy programs of the government did not reach the poor, a World Bank report showed.
In its first quarterly update on the Philippines released recently, the multilateral lender noted that there are weaknesses and leakage in two pro-poor programs, namely, the Food-for-School program of the social welfare department, and the rice subsidy by the National Food Authority (NFA).

"Leakage of the Food-for-School program and the NFA subsidized rice...were estimated at about 40 percent," the report said.
The report was produced by a team from the Manila office with support from the Philippines country team as part of World Bank's updates on the country's economic and social development and policies.
It explained that the leakage was due to "design weaknesses, mis-targeting, and significant leakage to the non-poor."
It said these "compromised" the efforts of the government to protect the poor through social protection schemes.
Still, it noted that the government is addressing these weaknesses and that it hopes "to improve targeting to minimize leakage and maximize the impact of transfers on poverty reduction."
Rice subsidy
Government’s intervention programs have been funded by windfall from VAT revenues from higher oil prices.
To help low-income consumers cope with the global spike in rice prices then, the government distributed state-subsidized rice through NFA.
World Bank estimated that the cost of this subsidy program could possibly be as high as P60.9 billion in 2008.
“Evidence shows that it is not well-targeted to the poor,” the World Bank report said.
Citing the 2006 Family Income and Expenditure Survey, it stressed that the poorest quintile (lowest 20 percent) in the country only spent 13 percent of their total rice spending on NFA-subsidized rice.
It added that only 31 percent of the NFA-subsidized rice reached the targeted lowest 20 percent, while as much as 41 percent leaked to non-poor households.
Likewise, it noted that in 2006, about 16 percent of the NFA rice was consumed by the richest who belong to the top two quintiles of the population.
Higher than Brazil
At the height of soaring food and fuel prices in the second and third quarter of 2008, World Bank had advocated for government intervention programs that directly target and benefit the “poorest of the poor.”
World Bank’s country director Bert Hoffman cited the success story of Bolsa Familia in Brazil. Referred to as “conditional cash transfers,” Bolsa Familia seeks to reduce poverty through cash transfers schemes to the poor based on factors such as regular school attendance or the regular use of preventive health care services.
However, according to the World Bank-funded discussion paper, “The Nuts and Bolts of Brazil’s Bolsa Familia Program: Implementing Conditional Cash Transfers in a Decentralized Context,” Bolsa Familia is ‘extremely well-targeted.’ It said that the poorest quartile of Brazil’s population enjoyed 80 percent of the benefits.
This means only 20 percent of the program’s budget was leaked to beneficiaries who are not the being targeted. Yet, of these leakages, the paper said 85 percent included the next poorest quartile. The paper concluded that Bolsa Familia money did not find its way into the pockets of the wealthy.
The 40 percent estimated leakage in the Philippines is higher than Brazil’s 20 percent.
Food for school
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) patterned their own subsidy program, called "Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program" (4P), on Bolsa Familia.
4P, launced in February 2008, is an expansion of an existing subsidy program called “Ahon Pamilyang Pilipino,” which aims to arrest the decreasing participation rate of Filipino students aged 6-14. With its additional P5 billion funds from the government, it aimed to provide cash grants to 321,000 poorest households in 2008.
One of the major components of 4P is the Food-for-School program, where P500 is given monthly to households for health and nutrition while P300 is allotted for each child who is studying, with a maximum number of three students in each family. Mothers usually have access to the money, which they get from the bank through ATM cards.
Government’s efforts
The report also acknowledged the government’s efforts to address these leakages.
For the NFA rice distribution, it cited that selling has been limited to Tindahan Natin outlets where only those with Family Access Cards (FAC) could avail of the subsidized rice.
“Though this approach is more desirable, it nevertheless suffers from some leakages as some FAC beneficiaries are determined by local government officials without the benefit of hard data, such as local household census.”
It suggested a better approach: design and implement a national targeting system to identify the deserving beneficiaries.
For the Food-for-School program, it noted that the government would soon implement the Proxy-Means Test, a computerized ranking system to assess socio-economic characteristics such as ownership of assets (including appliances), type of housing unit, and access to water and sanitation facilities.
Similar efforts would ensure that the funds are received by the intended beneficiaries, the World Bank said.

Obama captures historic White House win

Philippines 5th in world hunger survey

Four in 10 Filipinos had little or no food at all on their tables in the last 12 months, thus landing the Philippines in a list of African, Latin American, Asian and European countries whose citizens said that they "often or sometimes" lacked food in the past year, a worldwide survey on hunger said.

The results of the World Food Day survey by Gallup International-Voice of the People 2008 showed that 40 percent of Filipinos polled said that they lacked food "often or sometimes" in the last 12 months.

The survey also said that the hunger rate was highest in the nation's capital, Metro Manila, where at least 500,000 families lacked food.

The Philippines was in the league of African and Asian nations whose poor said they went hungry in the past year.

Cameroon topped the list at 55 percent, followed closely by Pakistan (53%) while Nigeria came third at 48. Peru was fourth with 42 percent, followed by the Philippines.

Next came Latin American countries Bolivia and Guatemala who were tied at 35 percent. Ghana was next at 32 percent while the rest of the top 10 spots were filled by Mexico and Russia (23 percent each). ABC-CBN News