Chinese businessmen commit worse corruption

Frankly Speaking
Frank Wenceslao

(File Photo)

A lawyer friend informed me of a plan of his fellow US-Pinoy law practitioners to form a cooperative and help President Aquino and succeeding administrations to stop, locate and recover Philippine public resources lost to corruption. Studies after studies show that if these resources misappropriated in corrupt practices and related criminal enterprises were reduced to manageable level as the emerging developed Asian countries have achieved, poverty in our country could’ve been less endemic and the number of people driven into poverty won’t reach today’s ratio to the total population which is worse than during the Marcos regime.

After seven years as Pamusa president and keenly observing what’s happening to our country I welcome the above help of our US-Pinoy lawyers and other American nationals which would go a long way to fight corruption and poverty in our homeland. I’m not a kind of person who thinks a mission can’t be accomplished unless I’m involved. I’ve learned that collective efforts are better to effectively address corruption which undoubtedly is exacerbating poverty in our country at a rate faster than in Marcos time because of the rapid population growth and new corrupt practices in the release and expenditure of public funds without accomplishing the programs and projects they’re intended for, e.g. pork barrel and Malampaya gas scams, Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), and other schemes that have yet to be exposed.

No amount of rationalization can Aquino reason out that the ship of state isn’t taking in water and he’ll be fully responsible for it’s likely to sink before his administration ends. Corruption is still the primary problem and many US-Pinoys are asking how could’ve Aquino failed to recognize his administration’s biggest problem is within because of the incompetent people he’s trusted to govern with him. As an Ateneo economics graduate how couldn’t he have pinpointed right away for the remarkable 7.2 GDP growth to make a dent on unemployment. He should know since nobody else in his inner circle seems to know that unproductive activities such as long-gestation programs and projects, government corruption and the country’s losses to rehabilitate the devastations caused by natural disasters are getting lopsidedly more of the nation’s resources while the business sector is moving out of the country their huge profits maybe not paying the correct taxes instead of reinvesting them in local industries to create new wealth and hasten employment of the unemployed and new entrants to the labor force.

How could’ve Aquino failed to recognize that the “captains” of Philippine industry are investing their profits partly earned from the proceeds of corruption (explained below) in foreign countries like the U.S., China, other ASEAN countries, etc. Moreover, Aquino fails to see that instead of efficiently utilizing the earnings from better production of God’s gifts to the Filipino people, I believe to help Aquino succeed, the resources are diverted by spineless and conscienceless manipulators such as Janet Napoles, her close associates and legal counsels, one of which is probably MOST (Marcos, Ochoa, Serapico and Tan) Law Firm that Napoles won’t retain if not for ES Paquito Ochoa, its “former” head, and conspiring members of Congress and aides. What great secret does Ochoa holds that Aquino seems willing to keep him to the end of his administration like a “kamikaze” pilot diving his plane to kingdom come?

It’s only in the Philippines where a law partner after “resigning” from the firm has his name continuously carried officially by the firm. When I asked a Pamusa legal adviser if that’s legal, his response was it’s both illegal and unethical and in the Philippines law firms don’t do that.

Every US-Pinoy I talk to agrees we owe our country to show at least some concern and ensure its survival in this dangerous world. These aren’t my words but of a successful US-Pinoy physician. He told me that unless our countrymen who’ve made good in America and elsewhere help to arrest the existential threat to the Philippines, its internal problems are revving up like boiling water inside a kettle whose pressure might reach implosive point more devastating than we’ve ever known before. The physician who worked in Indonesia wishes to remind our leaders and especially Chinese-Filipinos in general whose unprecedented and incredible growth of personal wealth and corporate assets may have partly come from the proceeds of corruption such as not paying correct customs tariff on imports and internal revenue taxes in general especially income tax. Chinese Filipinos should be careful that hungry workers unfairly treated by Chinese employers be provoked in watching on TV the arrogance and untouchable attitude of Cedric Lee when confronted by investigators about what he and his gang of kung-fu enthusiasts did to Vhong Navarro.

If this is not justly redressed it could add to the series of abuses Chinese-Filipino businessmen have inflicted on their poor workers and it won’t take an army of demonstrators to start agitating against Chinese-Filipino abuses and the damage they cause to the national economy and the Philippine government itself. Chinese-Filipinos should not feel too secure especially with the growing tension in the conflicting territorial claims between our government and the PROC for some islands in the South China Sea. Chinese Filipinos in general should be reminded of the race riots in Indonesia in 1964 which if they happened in the Philippines would make the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolt like a basketball game rumble. Amidst the racial tension that started the riots in Indonesia in mid-1960s Indonesian natives went on a rampage against Chinese population or whoever looked Chinese and cut to pieces with bolo everyone they encountered along the way bands of aggrieved Indonesians were hunting Chinese.

When I visited Jakarta in 1979 as the Philippine Export Council head to attend a conference on export promotion, a Philippine Embassy employee volunteered to show me around one weekend and showed me the river cutting through the city like the Pasig River that became red with blood after Chinese bodies were cut to pieces and thrown into the river. That also happened in Malaysia in a smaller scale and are both historical facts that could happen in the Philippines.

Aquino should also focus on the corrupt practices perpetrated by Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, John Gokongwei, their ilk and their minions whose collectively adverse impact on the nation’s economy must have been the biggest single cause of stunting our national development for decades.

Take Henry Sy as an example. Because of “paid praise-releases” Sy has never been exposed of exploiting our country’s youth by his management practice of hiring young sales personnel for his malls, department stores, supermarkets, fast food restaurants, other retail outlets, etc. to a maximum of only 5 months at the end of which they are terminated and won’t be hired in the same establishments again. The reason is Sy doesn’t want to pay social benefits and other privileges due permanent employees including overtime pay required under the Labor Code.

One can imagine this waste of human resources and talents when experienced sales personnel of malls, department stores, supermarkets, fast food restaurants and other labor intensive establishments aren’t rehired and most of whom are jobless after only a 5-month employment. While not all of them remain unemployed, a majority can’t find jobs that pay decent wages. Hence, they continue to depend on their parents who may have 4 to 6 other children with the meager income the father earns perhaps as jeepney driver or the mother working as domestic helper abroad.

Yet, every Sy’s photo looks he doesn’t care whatever may happen. Just wait and see, Mr. Sy – I hope you’re still around when the real explosion occurs but, of course, your children will still be in the Philippines. But where can they go? Not in USA and China though because the corrupt practices they perpetrated in their various Philippine companies will be criminally actionable in the two foreign countries.

In the U.S. they could go only to jail. But for the sake of China’s strictly maintaining good international image, Chinese found guilty of corruption may face the firing squad. Better amend your ways!

Beside the exploitative hiring policy of Sy and other Chinese Filipino businessmen engaged in enterprises abovementioned, they squeeze down the prices of products supplied by the cottage and small enterprises (C&SEs) which stock the malls, department stores, supermarkets, etc. Not satisfied of extracting the lowest price by openly showing the competing offers of suppliers of similar products, they are paid for their deliveries with 90-day post-dated checks. In order to get the cash needed that a cash-starved C&SE needs in day-to-day operation (isang kayod, isang tuka) they’re forced to discount the post-dated check with Sy’s or Gokongwei’s owned bank as the case may be at 2% monthly interest with the total 6% interest for 90 days discounted.

Thus, a Sy’s or Gokongwei’s owned retail outlet more than doubles up the profits on a merchandise item by squeezing price reduction of at least 10% from a C&SE supplier plus 6% discount charge for the post-dated check, which is clearly an added margin of profit of 16% TAX-FREE.

Since Sy’s stores are well-stocked with imported goods, it’s worth investigating if correct customs tariff and taxes were paid on his imports that should be part of any forensic audit discussed below. This should also be done to other Chinese-Filipino businessmen with large quantities of imports for retail merchandising like Sy, Gokongwei, etc.

If Aquino wanted to turn around the deteriorating Philippine economy and avert the disaster it’s headed to, he should ask Congress for the URGENT creation of a permanent, Cabinet level National Commission Against Corruption (NCAC), in lieu of the Department of Emergency Preparedness and Recovery (DEPR) earlier proposed, with two primary purposes, as follows:

Firstly, the NCAC shall be the focal point to negotiate settlement and the return to the state of public assets misappropriated for personal benefits and aggrandizement of current and former public officials from Marcos time to date, their family members and close associates or private businessmen and individuals that colluded with them and have likewise enriched themselves from the proceeds of corruption; and

Secondly, with its Department for Investigation and Prosecution (DIP), the NCAC shall be in charge of investigating unexplained wealth and illicit gains amounting to Fifty Million Pesos (P50,000,000.00) and more, which is ostensibly beyond the realm of statistical probability of the owner to earn or may have come from “a process or series of actions through which income of illegal origin is concealed, disguised, or made to appear legitimate (main objective); and to evade detection, seizure and taxation.” (USDOJ definition that led to fall of big America’s conglomerates, e.g. Enron, Worldcom, etc.). PCGG naturally has to be abolished with its chairman and commission members and other top officials investigated for graft and corruption.

The DIP shall have a core group of lawyers-CPAs who will conduct the investigation of financial crimes with the cooperation of the Ombudsman, DOJ’s Prosecution Service, DOF with BIR and BOC, all law enforcement and other agencies concerned that may provide information or evidence in the violation of the anti-graft law, anti-money laundering law, fraud and other crimes of similar category and definition as U.S. crimes for which the UNCAC’s international cooperation provisions and subsequent international cooperation agreements against corruption (ICAACs) can invoked to get U.S. help and prosecute the accused in a U.S. venue or in another willing UNCAC signatory nation.