MALAYA
‘The behest loan charges would not stick because it was established that the transaction was not only collateralized but it was paid before its maturity and was the single most profitable deal ever for the bank.’
A SUSPECT in the murder of her brother in a highly publicized case is able to leave the country because immigration officials who processed her departure say that they could do nothing because there was no hold-departure order from the Department of Justice?
Yet, these very same immigration officers regularly hold Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who have complete papers for no reason at all but the supposed suspicion that they may be illegally leaving the country. Of course, if these OFW suspected of illegality open their wallets and give several hundred pesos to the immigration officers, the suspect can leave the country.
Doesn’t the immigration officer have a civic duty (as a civic-spirited citizen), to call the police in to arrest this suspected murderer? What happened to their duty as citizens and responsible government personnel? What is Commissioner Ricardo David doing about this?
Are we no longer the nation that President Ramon Magsaysay wanted us to be where “those who have less in life have more in law”? Is it now only palakasan, where those who have more in life have even more in law? Kwarta-kwartahan na lang ba and sorry na lang ang walang atik?
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Why is our Senate still looking into the controversy created by the new Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) bosses who created it in an effort to be counted with PAGCOR and PCSO officials who moved against the illegal and unseemly acts of the Arroyo appointees in those offices? There never was anything wrong with the DBP’s dealings in the transaction that Chairman Jose A. Nunez Jr. of DBP is ranting about. Why is our Senate still investigating this?
With the direction of the Senate investigations on the DBP controversy involving an alleged behest loan and insider trading, you would think that there was an on-going inquisition of big businesses in the country.
The Senate went into a series of hearings to investigate the alleged behest loan taken by now-legitimate businessman, the former Trade Minister Roberto Ongpin of the Marcos dictatorship, with the DBP. When the behest loan charges would not stick because it was established that the transaction was not only collateralized but it was paid before its maturity and was the single most profitable deal ever for the bank, senators turned to another supposed violation – insider trading.
The Senate has suspended the hearings until Ongpin will be back in-country but senators have included more people to be invited in the next hearing next week and they include other big and reputable businessmen like Manuel Pangilinan and officials of the UK-based Ashmore company.
Is our Senate engaged in a witch-hunt? Or are some of the senators just merely on a fishing expedition, in the hope of uncovering something – anything? In the US Senate, before they undertake any investigation, their investigators have already uncovered everything that needs to be uncovered; thus, US senators are seldom embarrassed when hostile witnesses turn the tables on them!
Our Senate creates a bad image of the country when its investigations show to the whole world how legitimate businessmen are harassed on mere suspicion. If that’s the case, why would anyone want to do business here?
The Philippines has dropped two ranks from 134th to 136th as of June 2011 in the Ease of Doing Business survey conducted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
The Philippines continues to lag behind its Asian neighbors in terms of foreign direct investments. The Philippines attracted just $1.7 billion, or 2.3 percent of the $75.6 billion of foreign direct investment that flowed into the 10 members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) in 2010, trailing Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, according to official Asean data.
With the inquisition-like proceedings in the Senate, if I were a foreign investor, I would avoid the Philippines like the plague. Instead of showing to the whole world how legitimate businessmen in the country could be easily besieged on just mere suspicion or say-so, their entire reputation put on the line – our good senators should just find ways and means to improve our country’s standing by rising above partisan politics and craft laws that would address our worsening economic problems.
It is lamentable that in the midst of rising unemployment and poverty, increasing hunger incidence and worsening peace and order problems, our senators are instead going after legitimate businessmen who have been helping keep the country afloat with their continuous trust and hope in the country that can only be measured by the money they put into the country through their investments.
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We have a letter: “As a Bicolano, I am ashamed with the lies being spread by Governor LRay Villafuerte and his provincial administrator Fermin Mabolo, whose letter made its way into the October 31, 2011 column of Mr. Ducky Paredes.
Both LRay and Mabolo claim that the Partido Development Administration (PDA), which has jurisdiction over the island of Atulayan in the town of Sagnay (my place of birth), is included in the list of government corporations whose abolition was proposed by a House bill.
But I heard on radio that no less than the author of the bill, Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, has stated he has long ago removed PDA from the list because its inclusion was a very big mistake that arose from the lack of information about its accomplishments.
I can easily understand how such a mistake can be made by a member of Congress considering that PDA, since its creation in the 1990s, has chosen to work silently for the district, creating hundreds of roads and bridges, schools and many other infrastructures now linking our 10 towns physically and economically.
PDA is in stark contrast with the administration of Governor Villafuerte, which boasts about his non-accomplishments while issuing lame excuses why Camarines Sur has the highest malnutrition and poverty rate in the whole of Bicol.
For the information of non-Bicolanos, the 4th District (formerly the 3rd District) now boasts of a water system that serves all of our barangays 24/7, while all of our barangays are now with electricity. In fact, Atulayan in 2004 emerged as the first (or is it the only?) island in the whole country with hybrid power (wind, solar, diesel) as source of electricity.
I know that LRay and Mabolo are hitting PDA just because they are against that bill creating the Province of Nueva Camarines. But do they have to resort to falsities? – Noame M. Ragiles, Barangay Tagbong, Camarines Sur
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