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