Serge warns Arroyo hiring ‘brightest crooks’

President Arroyo has been hiring the "best and the brightest" to join her government, according to opposition Sen. Sergio "Serge" Osmeña III.

"She’s been recruiting the best friends of Jose Pidal and the brightest crooks," he told journalists over the weekend.

"That is the reason why these government corporations are losing billions in taxpayers’ money," he said.

By "Jose Pidal," Osmeña said he was referring to First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and not to the congressman-brother of President Arroyo’s husband, Negros Occidental Rep. Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo.

He added that as far as he was concerned, the presidential husband is the real Jose Pidal, while "Iggy is the fake Jose Pidal."

In June and September last year, opposition Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson, in a three-part exposé, accused the First Gentleman of allegedly hiding about P260 million in supposedly illegal funds under the false name Jose Pidal and using three friends as dummies.

Mrs. Arroyo’s husband consistently denied the accusation.

Eight days after Lacson made his initial exposé, Iggy Arroyo came out in the open and claimed he was Jose Pidal. But when he appeared before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, Iggy refused to talk about the hundreds of millions of Pidal accounts, invoking his right to privacy more than 20 times.

Sen. Joker Arroyo, who is not related to the Arroyos, upheld Iggy’s invocation of his right to privacy, stalling the investigation. It has been hanging since then.

Osmeña also said the President is just transferring heads of bleeding state firms from one corporation to another instead of replacing them.

He cited in particular the cases of Bernardino Abes and former Ambassador Thelmo Cunanan.

He said Abes, a former labor official who served under the administration of the late President Diosdado Macapagal, Mrs. Arroyo’s father, was moved from the Social Security System, where he was chairman, to the Government Service Insurance System.

Abes replaced former Justice Hermogenes Concepcion Jr. as GSIS chairman.

During the last Congress, when he was chairman of the Senate committee on banks, Osmeña grilled Abes and other SSS officials on the sale at a loss of P6 billion of the pension fund’s stake in Equitable-PCI Bank.

Largely because of the senator’s opposition to the deal, the sale was called off. SSS is now looking for another buyer who can offer a higher price.

As for Cunanan, Osmeña said he replaced Abes as SSS chairman. Cunanan came from the Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC), where he was president. PNOC is one of the government corporations losing millions in taxpayers’ money.

It is not known how much Abes and Cunanan would receive in salaries and allowances as GSIS and SSS chairmen.

But the GSIS president and the SSS president, according to Osmeña, get about P600,000 and P500,000 a month, respectively.

Another state firm that is losing money is the Public Estates Authority, the agency Mrs. Arroyo ordered abolished two years ago when one of its board members revealed the alleged overpricing by P600 million of the P1.1 billion President Diosdado Macapagal-Avenue in the reclaimed area in Pasay City.

Despite the presidential abolition order, PEA has managed to exist. In fact, Mrs. Arroyo has appointed a new chairman in former Sen. Ramon Revilla Sr.

According to Senator Lacson, the 5.1-kilometer road named after the President’s father is perhaps the world’s most expensive stretch of asphalt. It cost about P200 million per kilometer.