Chairman Felicito "Tong" Payumo’s ascendancy to the position had its share of drama, what with a reported death of one of the supporters of his predecessor, now newly elected senator Richard "Dick" Gordon, during one of the violent confrontations that happened when the first official act of then President Erap, which was to boot him out of the chairmanship was being implemented and opposed by Gordon’s supporters and Dick himself.
Controversial issues seem to refuse to leave this once bastion of American military presence in this part of the world. This once biggest US military naval base, an impenetrable fortress for an ordinary Filipino mortal before the Americans were made to leave by "eleven nationalists" in the senate, although many still maintain that it was the 18 inch ash fall from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, which the Americans felt made it unsafe for a naval base, that actually convinced them to let it go, now registered eight million visitors last year and employs 60,000 Filipinos, a figure a lot more than when it run as a foreign military installation.
Within the six years of Tong’s tenure issues on alleged irregular transactions, project scams and sweetheart deals were hurled at him, many supposedly coming from his predecessor’s supporters and his predecessor himself.
One such issue is that which involves the existing arrangement covering the Naval Supply Depot. Critics of Tong have even dubbed this as "a sweetheart deal" that involves the granting of a 25-year concession to the Subic Bay International Container Terminal Holdings Inc., a joint venture between two former protagonists and Subic mega projects’ competing bidders, ICTSI and RPSI.
When this issue was brought up during Tong’s interview on the TV show Breaking Barriers, which will be aired this coming Wednesday, at 11 o’clock late evening on IBC TV-13, the SBMA chairman gladly explained that this agreement made way for Subic to be able to handle more efficiently its once antiquated port services that didn’t even have a Gantry Crane to unload with ease container vans compared to having this done by self-geared container ships before the concession was granted.
As we have culled from the on-camera interview and off-camera chat, the SBMA chairman impressed on us that it was no "sweetheart deal" in the sense that the government got "the shorter end of the stick" with the contract. He may have made "sweethearts" between the once professionally warring business competitors who are still in the midst of some legal wrangling due to a failed bidding for a Subic mega project in the past, by being instrumental in getting them into a joint venture that benefited everybody most especially Subic but not to the detriment of the government.
There are other issues like the Subic Seaport Project, which some of his staunchest critics term as "the mother of all scams, bigger than Amari" and the setting up of "SCAD" or the Subic-Clark Alliance for Development as an added layer of bureaucracy rather that a coordinating agency for the dual development of both economic zones as claimed, that Tong gamely tackled and explained during the interview.
According to Chairman Payumo the decongestion of Metro Manila of container trucks on their way to the North and South harbors is just one of the many benefits that the Subic Seaport would bring about as exporters loated in the North and Central Luzon including those in the North of Metro Manila would definitely opt for the Subic Seaport, which is projected to handle 600,000 20-foot containers at any given time.
SBMA chairman Felicito Payumo has an answer for every allegation and accusation hurled his way. Watch him this Wednesday and you be the judge.
The officers cited were LTC Joseph Galam 403 CDC Commander, Col. Delfin Fernandez 4th RCDG Deputy and LTC Gregorio Javier CO Ready Reserve, Laguna.
Way to go, ARESCOM!
Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.
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