Mysterious investor

Speculations are rife that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) is hot on the trail of a mysterious “investor” in the defunct Westmont Investment Corp. (Wincorp).

For the past few months, media has been discussing the issue of that strange investor in the light of the death of a former Wincorp director, esteemed investment banker Tony Ong.

Talk about the mysterious investor was triggered by the news that prior to Ong’s untimely demise, he was locked in a protracted legal battle which may have pushed him to take his own life.

The case reportedly involved the effort of that mysterious investor to collect some P400 million in alleged placements in the defunct investment house.

Apparently, the case had dragged for close to a decade now because the mysterious investor, as he himself had disclosed to the court, used similarly mysterious accounts for his alleged placements, meaning none of the P400 million which he claimed he invested in Wincorp were ever under his name.

Despite his supposed big-name connections, the said investor reportedly did not escape the attention of BIR Commissioner Sixto Esquivias.

We do not know if the reports are true that when Esquivias got hold of the story, he had asked BIR’s National Investigation Division to look into the man’s tax payment record.

But here’s the rest of the story. The BIR division was reportedly shocked to discover that the mysterious investor has no tax payment record on file.

If it is true that Esquivias ordered the inquiry, then we can only laud the BIR chief. Surely, the investor would have a lot of explaining to do. Or better yet, a lot of sharing of his financial resources with the government to do.

Already, Esquivias fell short of his collection target of P100 billion for April this year. That was supposed to be the peak collection month, but the BIR’s take was much lower than the P91 billion it raked in during the same period last year.

When times are difficult for our revenue collection agencies, any story about a P400 million-man is worth looking into.

Unnecessary delays

Not even our courts of justice allow these many motions for reconsideration.

In the case of the Supreme Court, a second MR may be allowed but more as an exception rather than the rule.

In the case of the Comelec special bids and awards committee (SBAC) for the P11-billion election automation project, it just denied a third MR filed by the AMA consortium from a Comelec ruling disqualifying it.

However, there are reports that AMA will file a fourth MR. Earlier disqualified bidders Gilat and Sequoia have filed new MRs.

The Comelec SBAC has moved the awarding of the contract from the end of May to mid-June due to the pendency of the motions.

This cannot go on and on. The reason why the courts of justice limit the number of MRs is to avoid unnecessary protracted legal battles.

The SBAC had disqualified the AMA consortium for failing to submit certificates of acceptance on its previous automation contracts with the States of Michigan and Minnesota, United States.

It has now taken SBAC more than two weeks to decide on who bags the multi-billion peso contract. It declared the tandem of Smartmatic International of Netherlands and Total Information Management Corp. of the Philippines as a qualified bidder but didn’t award the contract yet pending resolution of several MRs of the other bidders.

Meanwhile the Comelec requested Smartmatic/TIM to prepare their Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines for demonstrations. The machines have been delivered to the Comelec early last week and it’s been idle there since.

Several companies and consortiums have been disqualified from bidding for the election automation contract due to their failure to comply with documentary and technical requirements. According to the SBAC, they did not anticipate the filing of numerous MRs in their timeline. That’s strange.

Upcoming legal battle

It would be interesting to find out how an upcoming legal tussle between two giants will turn out.

Reports are that the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) is suing computer giant IBM for installing what the former claims is a lemon of a software, which has turned into a nightmare for the financial institution.

The GSIS has reportedly traced the difficulties in processing the claims and benefits of its members, pensioners and other beneficiaries, as well as the glitches encountered in some instances in the posting of payments made to the GSIS to software malfunction.

According to GSIS officials, they have been breathing down IBM Philippines’ neck for years now to fix the database management software which allegedly was at the core of the problem. IBM Ontario had admitted that the IBM software is to blame, but GSIS claims the local representatives did nothing other than upload a “patch” or a software to its DB2 database management system in use by the GSIS, which did not solve the problem.

GSIS has announced that despite the software problem, the integrity of its members’ records is intact and that it is already consulting third-party IT sources to fix the problem.

Having given IBM Philippines a final demand letter and gearing itself for a legal fight, the GSIS has also said that it is considering migrating to another software, but this may take time.

In the meantime, GSIS stakeholders will have to suffer the consequences of an undelivered promise.

Not so hidden agenda

Congratulations to the Rotary Club of Batasan Hills (RCBH) for its highly successful medical-dental mission held yesterday at Baranggay Batasan Hills, with 374 medical and 87 dental patients that were given free services, in partnership with the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). RCBH is led by its president Santiago Dimaliwat IV, incoming president Edgar Mendoza, club secretary Rebecca dela Cruz, among others.

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