‘Pag-IBIG Fund will be well-protected’

The provident Pag-IBIG Fund will be well-protected even if President Arroyo has replaced its chairman Manuel Crisostomo, Sen. Francis Pangilinan said yesterday.

Pangilinan, chairman of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, said that Pag-IBIG members should not be worried that the fund would be depleted with the firing of Crisostomo.

"There is a process on the utilization of the fund, so the fund will be protected. The funds can only be used based on the decision of the board, not on the unilateral action of the President," he stressed.

The President announced the firing of Crisostomo following the complaint of "housing czar" Secretary Michael Defensor of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, that he could not get the cooperation of Crisostomo.

Crisostomo had opposed the placing of the fund under the control of the soon-to-be established Department of Housing, saying the fund has a fiduciary character and should be kept independent of government control.

Pangilinan refuted this stand of Crisostomo.

"It is true that the fund is private but it is government-administered. In the long run, the issue here is how we will be able to fund housing, which is really of public interest," he said.

He blamed previous lack of coordination among agencies involved in housing as the principal reason for the failure to address problems of the sector.

Pangilinan said that Defensor was at HUDCC precisely because there is a need to coordinate the activities of attached agencies. – Efren Danao