By Frank Wenceslao
To paraphrase an old tenet that war is so complex to just leave it to generals, governing a nation can be disastrous when the President’s advisers are of “lesser legal minds” (quoting Emil Jurado) and lack strategic thinking. For instance, how could anyone of average mind recommend the abolition of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) without realistic replacement when barely 20% has been recovered of Marcos’ and cronies’ ill-gotten wealth of $10-$15 billion?
In a March 1 speech on the PCGG’s 25th anniversary, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa announced the agency’s abolition in two years, which Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has also proposed earlier. To hide their self-interests behind the proposal, PCGG Chairman Andy Bautista was asked to write a letter to the President for the purpose and perhaps lend it credibility from his corporate management experience.
My biggest concern for P-Noy’s began when his victory became imminent. I came home last June after six years in America to attend the President’s inauguration with the US-Pinoys for Noynoy & Mar. My purpose is to find out how the UNCAC through Pamusa could help P-Noy flesh out his campaign slogan “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.”
P-Noy gave us his first appointment for a group as president undoubtedly in appreciation of the US-Pinoys’ contribution to his victory. Miguel Perez Rubio who was President Cory’s and P-Noy’s protocol director lifted my spirits and made the long wait worthwhile when he told our group the occasion was déjà vu for me. Rubio remembered I was a member of the late president’s reception committee when she started holding office. I knew the confusion and competition for the positions to be filled in an incoming administration. In fact, after a position I wanted was filled up by Jimmy Ongpin’s choice I became so disappointed when Cory reasoned out it’s under the finance department and Jimmy just handed her the appointment paper to sign. I almost asked Cory if she weren’t the president we risked our lives for.
After that I lost interest in government service and thought to continue my stay in the U.S. when I was asked to see newly retired Gen. Salvador Mison who’d replace assassinated Local Government Secretary Jimmy Ferrer and perhaps I could be his undersecretary. But after another Gringo Honasan-led attempted coup on August 27-28, 1987 Mison asked me if I was still interested to join him not at the DLG but at the Bureau of Customs. AFP CoS Gen. Fidel Ramos urged the President to immediately replace the customs commissioner then because gun smuggling was mostly entering through the Port of Manila.
Thus began my most miserable government service. Everyday I first read newspaper columns particularly of Louie Beltran and Art Borjal to find out what were their attacks against the BOC and me. They couldn’t attack Mison who’s clean, so they attacked me and his other assistants with the most ridiculous accusations only the mentally retarded would do. Their untimely deaths must’ve been an answer to those they maligned.
My concerns for P-Noy’s administration are virtually the same for his mother’s. I’ve wanted to protect him as I did her who agonized when her top officials turned out to be different from expectations. Everyone would agree P-Noy faces a culture of corruption worse than Cory which had been the source of her great irritation. Unfortunately, P-Noy’s top advisers seem equally afflicted with bureaucratic malaise that if they hadn’t found the solution to a problem they won’t try an outsider’s suggestion, lest the latter gets the credit.
After finding out the real-world experience of De Lima and Ochoa was confined to the law profession I became wary they won’t appreciate the latest international anticorruption tools that Pamusa found effective in other countries. After sending close to a hundred emails to everyone concerned about the latest anticorruption innovations I sensed De Lima and Ochoa were the most resistant. I agreed with former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. to serve as adviser to the proposed truth commission believing it’d be an aggressive investigating body and adopt the latest measures in fighting corruption under the UNCAC’s international cooperation provisions (UNCAC-ICP) and other multilateral agreements.
Wary that the new administration like the previous would be paralyzed fighting graft and corruption in the country’s justice system, I decided to stay for three months and waited for EO No. 1 and the appointment of the commission’s 5 members. It took Davide and his 5 members up to the end of September to approve the rules and constitute the PTC. By then the opposition to it has solidified that some Supreme Court justices must’ve succumbed to pressure and found the reason to declare it unconstitutional.
The legal setback lies squarely on De Lima’s and Ochoa’s laps for they’re most responsible for EO No. 1. It’s another manifestation of their lack of broad real-world experience. De Lima told me of the court’s decision in Washington DC early December when we attended the WB-sponsored International Corruption Hunters Alliance (ICHA) meeting. She told me of appealing the court’s decision even though former appellate Justice Magdangal Elma later on opined the PCGG had the powers to investigate graft and corruption during the Arroyo administration. The opinion apparently embarrassed De Lima because Elma made the PTC redundant. De Lima became more hardheaded to appeal the SC decision. So much time and political capital was lost by the President fending off accusations by GMA’s allies that the PTC was simply a payback for dragging Hacienda Luisita’s problem into politics.
I emailed De Lima that whether or not the SC reverses its decision she should ask for the creation of an interagency anticorruption team to address the whole spectrum of graft and corrupt practices which include tax evasion, smuggling, illegal gambling, money laundering, and violation of Bangko Sentral rules including U.S. laws. I assured her and everyone concerned Pamusa would ask the help of U.S. federal agencies and their foreign counterparts for their cooperation in invoking the UNCAC-ICP.
My foreboding got worse when I learned the proposal to abolish PCGG. This doesn’t make sense with the DOJ overwhelmed by common crimes and the Ombudsman in a state of inutility. It’s a glaring proof Ochoa’s and De Lima’s lack of strategic thinking if not outright ignorance of the political and economic forces prevailing in a democratic government. The two have shown incurable flaws in policy-thinking and are unqualified in their high positions.
A little foresight would’ve strengthened their spines to say “No” even if the abolition were P-Noy’s idea because of the political damage it’d do him. The President’s political enemies and the media would have a fiesta to embellish the issues arising out of PCGG’s abolition. Ochoa and De Lima were clueless of the negative impact the President would be subjected to by the media especially the AC-DC type if a TV appearance would earn them a few minutes of fame. The President’s two top advisers haven’t thought through that two presidential relatives will be the biggest beneficiaries of the PCGG’s abolition alongside Imelda Marcos et al. and probably GMA et al. on which our lawyers and researchers are putting the pieces together.
Did Ochoa and De Lima consider that an amendment let alone a replacement of the PCGG law would pass in Congress? Would a PCGG law be enacted more effective and better than the present that can effectively recover Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth kept by his family members and relatives, cronies such as Danding Cojuangco, the late Ramon Cojuangco’s estate, Roberto Ongpin, Lucio Tan and others?
In fact, Bautista made public the government loss from the deal to convert into preferred shares more than 750 million PCGG-sequestered common shares in San Miguel Corp. including five board seats in the company. This can only be legal if approved by GMA; if she did, she’d be actionable for violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, or worse the Anti-Plunder Law. The government loss would undoubtedly implicate GMA, ex-PCGG chair Camilo Sabio and the commissioners then including the SMC’s top officials. That’s why I don’t believe Bautista is part of the Ochoa-De Lima clueless cabal.
I’ve recommended to Bautista the case is better pursued in the U.S. since SMC has U.S. shareholders and operation like several conglomerates such as Siemens AG, Union Bank of Switzerland, Daimler (maker of Mercedes Benz) and IBM that paid millions of dollars of fines to avoid legal actions for probably violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Sabio and the commissioners that approved the deal almost surely were involved in bribery that transferred their illicit gains to the U.S., hence actionable for violating U.S. laws.
Has no one told Ochoa and De Lima that the estate of Ramon and Imelda Cojuangco represented by Tonyboy Cojuangco has not accounted for to date the cash and stock dividends from Marcos’ PLDT stock? Former Executive Secretary Eddie Ermita estimated in March 2007 the dividends would’ve reached P35.1 billion ($780 million at the rate of PhP45 = $1.00) from 1986 up to December 2006 when the shares of stock were turned over to the PCGG.
That’s why when Tonyboy was reported to contribute PhP100 million to his cousin, Noynoy Aquino’s campaign, I could only tell myself the amount was from his loose change.
For direct comments: fcwenceslao1034@gmail.com.
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