The hypocrisy of this government is immeasurable. One wonders whether it is with a Filipino’s sense of patriotism or insanity that we persist calling ourselves Filipinos.
This column is particularly appalled at the signing of Republic Act 10368 or the Human Rights Victims reparations and Recognition Act of 2013. The law intends to award the 10,000 alleged victims of human rights violations during the Marcos years taken from the Swiss account of the Marcoses which the notoriously corrupt Arroyo government managed to obtain without the owners having been convicted in a criminal case.
Maybe PNoy can claim his signing of R.A. 10368 is his crowning glory for as he would put it, the law is meant to right the wrong of the past. If such is the case, this government should declare Jose Ma. Sison a hero, and all the NPA hitmen and ABB members who died or were incarcerated “martyrs” for that is the sequential logic of what he said.
In contrast, this doggone government has completely forgotten the plight of the 1,411 retired employees of the National Waterworks and Sewerage Authority (NWSA) who were awarded small lots for their place of abode in gratitude for their dedicated serviced to the government. The Supreme Court in the case of Sergio M. Isada vs. Judge Juan L. Bocar, et. al., docketed as G.R. L-33535 ordered way back on January 17, 1975 for the individualized titling of the property to the awardees.
To quote that rather passionate decision: “The common man, like, for example, a salaried employee, is entitled not only “to a little more food in his stomach, a little more clothing on his back, and a little more shelter over his head” but also a lot, even small, where he can build his house and establish a permanent abode. A man with a home and a means of subsistence is a lover of peace and order and will profess affections for his country, whereas one without a home and in penury is not only a social parasite but also a dangerous element in the social order.”
That decision could have paved the way for the implementation of the project if only the NWSA board promptly individualized the mother title, comprising 59 hectares located within La Mesa, Novaliches, Quezon, to the 1,411 employees with a lien in favor of GSIS for their loan to build a house over said piece of land with each awardee paying his monthly amortization until fully paid. GSIS, in turn, could have advanced the cost to the contractor to undertake the housing project.
What perverted that decision was the opinion rendered by one stupid bureaucrat in the then Government Corporate Council insisting that Genaro C. Bautista as attorney-in-fact for all the awardees on the basis of his being the president of the then Kaisahan at Kapatiran ng mga Maggagawa at Kawani sa MWSS. Essentially, there was nothing wrong in that opinion for probably the union successfully bargained for the granting of the housing project. But a second look, the awardees as members of Kapatiran already paid their dues while they were still in the service. Had that corrupt administrator of NWSA immediately subdivided the land to individual titles, the questionable role of Bautista as alleged attorney-in-fact would have been rendered irrelevant. That mere opinion subverted the decision of the five justices, which is now the main stumbling block preventing the implementation of the housing project for the retired NWSA employees, many of whom have already died.
It has been more than 40 years, more than the period the crybabies fought to get their paycheck, yet those retired employees have yet to see the light of day. Most anomalous is when the Ramos administration privatized the MWSS in 1994, the government only secured the financial security of those fatcats. The awardees even sought the assistance of the law office of Tañada to facilitate the release of their individualized titles. Many government agencies now question the project on the basis that the distribution of the lands to the individual awardees is a private matter between the awardees and their attorney-in-fact. In turn, the attorney-in-fact is now using his questionable position to hold hostage the awardees despite the fact that he has not invested a centavo to rightfully claim pecuniary interest over said property.
In fact, his role as head of the called KKMK-MWSS had long ceased after the system of water distribution was privatized, and the bargaining unit he claims to represent no longer in existence. As a result, not even a single post has been erected, and the place is now teeming with squatters with some awardees suspecting they are paying rental fees to those in charge of protecting the property from being encroached. Many fear the real estate developers would convince the attorney-in-fact to sell the whole property, or that the hapless awardees given instead a diminished area or a small unit condominium, far different to what was originally awarded them. As one awardee would comment, “she is being urged to sell her right to the lot”. But as she asked, “how could she when she has yet to receive and have a copy of the title?”
The miserable plight of the retired employees of MWSS now stand as epitome of the worst injustice this government could commit against those who served in their prime years as public servants. PNoy should do something to resolve this long overdue housing project. After all, his mother bears part of the responsibility when those prime properties comprising the Old Balara Watershed was sold by her mother’s appointee to big real estate developers and made it the exclusive residence of the rich and the super rich in this country.
His duty now is to protect the rights and interests of public servants because their long years of service stand as their indubitable proof of loyalty to this republic. The role of the State as parens patriae can never be entrusted to anybody, not even to one claiming as attorney-in-fact.
rpkapunan@gmail.com
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