GOTCHA
By Jarius Bondoc
The Philippine Star
The Philippine Star
It’s not surprising that the number of families moaning of hunger in the past quarter increased, from 3.8 million to 4.1 million. International agencies have been noting since late 2010 that rising crude costs, rapid urbanization and changing diets have been pushing up food prices. Experts have been warning too of looming shortages of grains, dairy products and livestock. This will result from shifting farm usage from food to bio-fuels, population growth, and weather disturbances. Countries that have huge foreign reserves, like China with $2.8 trillion, can stave off famine by buying up all excess food stocks worldwide. But the Philippines, with $65-billion reserve, can spare only $490 million (P21 billion) for feeding programs. The Nomura Report lists it the 13th most vulnerable of 60 countries in studies in September 2010.
But there is yet no sense of urgency in the government. The energy department has not begun talking energy conservation. Malacañang is to devise food subsidies for jeepney and tricycle drivers, but left out and so envious are bus and taxi owners, farmers and fishermen, and haulers. Local officials are paying no heed to agriculturists’ suggestion to plant veggies in boxes and bananas in small plots, and shift from rice to healthier cassava.
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The rap filed against Local Waterworks and Utilities Authority (LWUA) chairman Prospero Pichay expectedly will drag in court. All do. This complicated one involves graft, malversation, and breach of banking rules.
But the immediate question is, can the government retrieve at once the half-billion pesos in LWUA money that Pichay allegedly gave away? It’s part of scant funds needed to stave off the looming food and water crisis.
From the charge sheet of the finance department, Pichay used P80 million in LWUA money to acquire 60 percent of a small savings bank. He wanted to transform the losing bank into a Water Development Bank. At the time, Express Savings Bank of Cabuyao, Laguna, had a book value of negative P31 million. Two months later in August 2009 Pichay plunked P400 million more of LWUA funds into Express SB.
Finance Sec. Cesar Purisima alleges that the P400 million was a capital infusion; Pichay says it was a savings deposit. Whatever, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas regulations allegedly were violated. BSP approval is needed to recapitalize a bank, or for a government agency to deposit its cash in a private bank. There was no BSP consent for either purpose. The P80-million buy-in also was unauthorized. Any buy-in of at least 20 percent of a bank’s equity requires the BSP’s nod. In this case the BSP specifically rejected the buy-in. It had ruled that the LWUA already was a lending agency to water districts, and so did not need to acquire a bank as conduit for its loans.
The graft allegedly was in Pichay’s signing a transaction grossly and manifestly disadvantageous to the government. The malversation was for misuse of the P400 million allotted for LWUA lending.
But where’s the money?
The P80 million must be with the Gatchalian family that owns Express SB. Pichay claims that the investment is now making profit, but has not substantiated it. The BSP has ordered the return of the money to the LWUA because the 60-percent buy-in was disproved.
Pichay at first said the P400 million is “just there,” denoting that the deposit is intact. He has also been quoted as saying that it has been lent out to various water districts. A quick accounting is needed.
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Reportedly junkshops will soon be prohibited from and penalized for buying scrap vehicle batteries. The government is about to require the return of used batteries to manufacturers. This will enable regulation of the export of the most profitable extract from the scrap: lead. The P11-billion battery industry will not have to scrounge around for the metal that is also their costliest raw material. Junkmen, informal recyclers and exporters will resent it. But their workers, communities, and waterways, will be spared from toxic lead filings.
Anyone who’s been to a junkshop knows how harmful it can be to everyone’s health. To pull out the metal, youths openly burn electrical wires, stolen from the neighborhood cable-TV connection and definitely defiling the air. For larger metal parts, unshielded laborers cut away at busted contraptions with acetylene torches and mallets, minding not the risk to their eyes or the ear-splitting racket. From scrap batteries, they wring out the lead with no care for the filings that fly about. At the end of the day they sweep and hose the dirt into sewer drains that empty into rivers, lakes and seas.
And that’s just the light part. Hardly anyone of them has heard of three laws pertinent to their trade. All violate the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, and the Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Waste Disposal Act. Too, the provisions of the Labor Code on industrial safety and health.
Returning used car batteries to fabricators could be the start of a major cleanup. The government can require household battery makers as well to recover their scrap and reuse the lead, mercury, cadmium and lithium. Processors of food, health and bathroom products must also be told to retrieve their bottle and plastic containers.
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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).
E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com
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