A bad teacher?

DUCKY PAREDES

MALAYA

‘I will follow my father’s footsteps in doing what is right, and God will take care of the rest. My father is my role model. My living role model is Cory Aquino. I am prepared.’

THE bad teacher tells her student that he is not doing as well as he begins his work compared to how she was doing when she left it?

I remember that when Gloria took over from Erap that I had mixed emotions about it. Erap was a classmate and a friend. True, he liked my kuya better but then, didn’t everyone? Eventually, I figured then (in 2001) that it was possible that she might do better than Erap did. In that event, she might work out better for this country. Thus, despite my close ties to Erap, I was ambivalent about the change simply because there was a chance that she could turn out better for the country; after all, didn’t she tell Time Magazine: “I will follow my father’s footsteps in doing what is right, and God will take care of the rest. My father is my role model. My living role model is Cory Aquino. I am prepared.”

Of course, she was prepared — to become the worst president we have had so far. Now, Gloria is in jail, probably for a very long haul, considering that new charges against her continue to be discovered. We have not yet seen the end of this long train.

Last week, she wrote a “study” intended for her former economics student (and read out loud by a UP economics professor) to tell her former student how badly he is doing. Of course, Noynoy ignored his former teacher. After all, if one went back to 2001, the year the Arroyo presidency began, it is clear that the present as new President, Pnoy’s attention is more focused on his job, than Teacher Gloria’s was.

Just think that in her first week as president, she approved a deal that neither Presidents Ramos nor Estrada approved. There were many tings amiss in that. This was the deal to repair certain power generating units that an Argentinean company had been awarded. What was amiss was that there was a government guarantee on it and neither former president liked that added burden. Yet, the brand-new president approved it in her first week. Then, there was the PIATCO contract for the construction of a new airport terminal. She decided to rescind it. This resulted in delays in the work and in the country being sued by the Filipino and German investors in international courts.

In May, 2001, a few months into her presidency, Muslim bandits abducted 20 hostages at a resort in Palawan. Even as Gloria officially adopted a hardline “no ransom” response to these and other kidnap cases and launched military operations against them, it was later revealed that hostages’ families paid ransom to the kidnappers directly, with some claiming that Philippine military officers received a portion of the funds.

Then, wasn’t Mike Arroyo accused of receiving bribes from a telecommunications company seeking government-approved contracts. It even later turned out that both Mike and Gloria and a host of other of their people were also involved. This was just in the first 18 months of Gloria’s presidency.

Thus, it would seem to me that Gloria really had no business telling Pnoy how to run things. The country might have slowed a bit on the economic front but 2011 was that kind of a year for the rest of the world, too, judging by what we read about the economy in the rest of the world. Besides, the new President, coming as he does into a government known (for the last nine years) as being one better known for kleptocracy and corruption, how could he implement projects envisioned and developed by the previous administration, without first vetting how it was developed and who benefited by them. In fact, in that review, the government has, in fact, found many things not quite right with what would have been developed, if these plans had been implemented as planned.

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The impeachment of Renato Corona as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court begins in earnest this afternoon.

Too bad that word that the World Bank had uncovered questionable procurements and disbursements in connection with the Judicial Reform Support Project (JRSP), which was partly funded by a World Bank loan of $21.9 million. The JRSP was started during Chief Justice Hilarion Davide’s watch and was designed to restore efficiency in the dispensation of justice in the country.

The World Bank now says officially (in an aide memoire) that since Corona assumed his post in mid-2010, progress in reforming the judiciary “has been rated unsatisfactory,” with “implementation delays and additional work required for smooth project closing.”

The WB document says: “The review discloses that the fiduciary environment pertaining to JRSP implementation has so deteriorated that the task team now rates the JRSP as a ‘high risk’ and ‘unsatisfactory’ on project management, project procurement and financial management dimensions, and observes that project financial statements can no longer be relied upon.”

The review uncovered “inaccurate/incomplete information” on the project’s financial management report, “diminished existing internal check-and-balance mechanism,” purchase of information technology equipment outside of the agreed procurement plan, and the practice of borrowing funds from the loan for the justices’ foreign travels, paid to a travel agency owned by lawyer Estelito Mendoza.

The World Bank now wants a refund of $199,900, covering 70 payments deemed “ineligible” or unauthorized under the terms of the JRSP. And the WB wants its money before Jan. 31, 2012!

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On to the impeachment. What we should all pray for is that this may serve to begin a cleansing of our judiciary. If we cannot all become billionaires, let us pray that what a much-loved president hoped for – that “those who have less in life should have more in the law” – can come true in our lifetime!

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