Why is Bayani Fernando being eased out?

I chanced upon DILG Secretary Joey Lina early last week and I asked him if he was moving to DPWH. Joey flatly denied it. I know Joey enough to believe him. Later that same day, I chanced upon some people who know what’s going on at DPWH. Yes, it was confirmed to me, Bayani Fernando is being eased out. No, it isn’t Joey Lina who will replace him.

A former senior DPWH undersecretary is supposedly being persuaded by Malacañang to take over the portfolio. But the guy is so sick of government service after so many years, he is in no mood to give up his retirement. I understand he said as much to Ate Glo when the job was offered to him. He suggested that another current undersecretary be considered and he will help from the sidelines. That’s the score thus far.

But why is Bayani Fernando being eased out? Well, in so many words, political pressure. It seems that the no nonsense Bayani has attracted the ire of some congressmen. He has started the thankless job of cleaning up DPWH and the proteges of politicians have gone back to their sponsors complaining about how strict Bayani is.

The politicians in turn have exerted pressure on Ate Glo. That shouldn’t matter at all if Ate Glo has no more political ambitions, as she declared. But the fact that she seems sensitive to political pressure indicates she may be thinking of changing her mind about not running next year. It makes no sense to name a new DPWH chief with barely a year left in her watch. So it seems something is percolating or as they put it in the coffee shops, may pinakukulo.

It does not help that Bayani has caught the public’s imagination as the kind of public servant we need to clean up government and also to get things done. If you have been reading the text messages from the public published by this paper, you must have noticed that messages are being posted suggesting Bayani for President in 2004. I know for a fact that Bayani has no ambition for Malacañang just yet, so I am sure these messages are genuine unlike those for some personalities who are openly seeking the position.

Bayani didn’t want to be DPWH Secretary, to begin with. He just wanted to spend the next year at MMDA trying to make the metropolis livable. But he was drafted, so to speak, and the loyal soldier that he is, he accepted the job on an acting capacity.

But he is not one who will be a mindless dummy of anybody. He saw the job he has to do and started doing it. Some weeks ago, he told me over coffee at Edsa Plaza’s Tuesday Club that he was shocked to find out that there are more bureaucratic paper pushers at DPWH than qualified engineers. His mission, he said, is to improve the technical capabilities of the department and do what he can to reduce the powers of the paper pushing, influence peddling and commission hungry bureaucrats.

Maybe that was his mistake. Those non productive bureaucrats are proteges of politicians, the same ones who now want his scalp. But what really doomed him was his order to reduce the cost of all projects by about 30 percent with no sacrifice on quality. As a big time contractor himself, he probably knows that could be done. In any case, he has no choice but to cut costs due to the fiscal deficit problem and the need to cut corruption.

That’s the problem of Bayani Fernando. He took Ate Glo’s Strong Republic rhetoric seriously and tried doing his job the best way he knows how. He should have known that’s not how this Republic is managed. That’s why he is now being eased out. Hindi siya marunong makisama.

If I know him, Bayani couldn’t care less if they eased him out. He won’t be a party to the scams that are standard operating procedures at DPWH. His only regret, I guess, is that he was not given time to show that a difference could be made by a leader who is honest, knowledgeable and determined to serve the people as he is expected to.

Sayang!

VAT ba ganito

According to news reports, the Department of Finance (DOF) is set to submit a recommendation to both houses of Congress for the deferment in the implementation of the 10-percent value-added tax (VAT) on financial transactions, citing its revenue neutral nature. Finance Undersecretary Cornelio Gison was quoted saying that Congress will be requested "to again exempt banks from the 10 percent VAT and for banks to go back paying the GRT (gross receipts tax)."

Gison, who is a certified public accountant, admitted that the 10-percent VAT on financial transactions is "very difficult to implement," thus the request for the lawmakers to spare the banks from the levy and instead maintain the GRT. The request was made last Friday, which was also the deadline for filing VAT returns for the first quarter. Banks and other financial institutions have been requested to "file a tentative return and amend it later."

Bakit ganito? If the VAT on banks is revenue neutral anyway and difficult to implement, why was it imposed by law? Did experts from the DOF (and possibly Agile) mislead Congress on this matter? This makes our lawmakers seem foolish in following recommendations of so called DOF experts blindly only to be told later, ay mali pala! And how come self proclaimed tax expert Juan Ponce Enrile who worked on the value added tax law didn’t see this coming?

Now we are faced with a stupid situation where the law enforcers themselves agree the law cannot be implemented. Why are we spending all that money on Congress for?

Mission to Iraq

Last week, there were protests from our politicians about sending a humanitarian mission to help reconstruct Iraq? Well, I just got a text message informing me that Congress has authorized sending a mission to Iraq… to help supervise the looting.

Biblical relic

A little boy opened the big and old family Bible with fascination, looking at the old pages as he turned them. Then something fell out of the Bible and he picked up and looked at it closely. It was an old leaf from a tree. The leaf had been pressed in between pages.

"Momma, look what I found," the boy called out.

"What have you got there, dear?" his mother asked.

With astonishment in the young boy’s voice he answered: "It’s Adam’s suit!!!!!"

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]