Villar’s Heavy Baggage

Frankly Speaking
Frank Wenceslao

Since certificate of candidacy filing is fast approaching, Sen. Manny Villar must answer questions about his political baggage because it’s as heavy as Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s before the 2004 elections. Thus, he must clear the air he’s fit to be President.

He can’t simply deny the accusations of obtaining unwarranted benefits from his government positions and dismiss reports as lies that his property development companies have greatly benefited from his political clout.

Villar was Senate President when the body ratified the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) in Nov. 2007. The convention resulted from worldwide indignation against government corruption when over $23 trillion the rich have poured to poor nations were stolen by their leaders since the end of WW II.

The Philippines is an example of what happens when governance is infected by corruption with the highest leadership to the lowest level of bureaucracy mired in graft to steal scarce government resources and deny the people’s minimum needs.

That’s why a presidential candidate like Villar shouldn’t be another corruption-tainted politician. His public statements to spend billions of own money with implication he’d recover it after his victory disqualified him because the Philippines doesn’t need his wealth-creating ability. He should renounce presidential ambition and leave the filed to Nonoy Aquino and Gilbert Teodoro to let our people choose between two untainted candidates.

For starters, Pamusa’s organizers, supporters and volunteers around the world ask Villar to answer the charges of Senators Jamby Madrigal and Ping Lacson of the “double insertion of PhP200 million” in the 2008 national budget for the C-5 Road Project.

Sen. Mar Roxas earlier questioned why two-thirds of Villar’s pork barrel was wholly allotted to C-5 extension when the project already had P200 million in the budget. Would Villar just dismiss the charges and stonewall that the insertion didn’t lead to his owned or controlled corporations (OCCs) being paid ahead for right-of-ways (ROWs) and, more importantly, raised the market values of his surrounding properties?

The question Villar must answer is this: Would an ordinary businessman be able to insert such an allocation for C-5 project, collect ROW payment ahead of other landowners similarly situated and increase the loan amounts of the same collaterals; then turn around to use the additional funds to speed up housing construction, sell finished units to improve cash flow while giving away some houses to the poor and appear charitable?

A Manila lawyer who sent me the details of Villar’s modus operandi opined he’s probably guilty of at least two serious infractions of the law. First is abuse of office in inserting allotment for C-5 regardless if it were PhP200M or PhP400M when it wasn’t in the House- and Senate-approved budget and, secondly, getting unwarranted benefits for his OCCs being fully paid for ROWs and gaining undue advantages from the rise of property values by instigating government action other landowners in similar situation weren’t favored.

According to the lawyer, there’s also a 6,155-sqm property given ROW funding of PhP15,000 per sqm for a Villar-OCC, Britanny Corporation’s 22,543 sqm property whose assessed market value was PhP47 million, roughly PhP2,000 per sqm.

Based on a copy of the Deed of Absolute Sale between Brittany president Jerry M. Navarette and the Toll Regulatory Board executive director Mariano E. Benedicto II Brittany was paid PhP92.33 million for the 6,155 sqm ROW of the 2.1-kilometer C-5 extension to link the Coastal Road with the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX). The extension had a budget of PhP100-million for ROW and PhP400 million for civil works “fully funded under special release,” the lawyer said.

This brings me to what I learned about ROW accounts as consultant to Bayani Fernando who succeeded Simeon Datumanong as Department of Public Works and Highways secretary. I got to know landowners waiting for payment since 1963 of ROWs for the NLEX first constructed by CDCP. Some depended on farming for livelihood with their lands virtually confiscated during martial law at arbitrary prices and still unpaid up to that year (2002).

On the other hand, community properties turned into a maze after ROWs were removed with the owners fighting in court to get whatever productive portions were left. For lands eaten up by ROWs including projects in the Visayas and Mindanao, people depending on farming had their lives turned upside down waiting for payment.

To remedy the problem since limited funds were appropriated annually for ROWs, the DBM resorted to rationing payments for accounts payable. A story I couldn’t verify was when Datumanong became DPWH secretary, ROW claims in Region 12 doubled the department’s accounts payable from less than PhP3 billion to close to PhP6 billion. Since I left the DPWH before it could be verified, I relied on land inspectors’ information that hundreds of hectares of ROW claims might be under Lake Lanao.

Of course, “palakasan” plays a big role which landowners get paid ahead. If Villar’s “insertions” enabled his OCCs be paid ahead of those waiting for decades, this makes him guilty of using government position to the detriment of small landowners.

Of greater interest to Pamusa and the Filipino people naturally is how Villar built up his one billion-dollar enterprise (almost equal to John Gokongwei’s) which he did not deny in his question-and-answer session with the MOPC last Oct. 29. Using his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth the year before his election to the House of Representatives as baseline, it appears Villar-OCCs and personal net worth grew by geometric progression and beyond the realm of statistical probability.

The next question for Villar is this: Does the Villar family have investments in the States or elsewhere abroad such as in real properties, securities and other holdings the FBI and cooperating international law enforcers can dig up and prove that the funds used were not included in Villar-OCCs’ financial reports and tax declarations including his own?

If this is the case, Villar and his wife are probably actionable under U.S. laws enforcing the UNCAC such as mail/wire fraud (foreign transfer of illegally earned income), money laundering (depositing illegal funds in U.S. banking system), racketeering (violation of RICO) and violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

(fcwenceslao1034@hotmail.com)