Sabio tells Senate he resigned from GOCC posts

Presidential Commission on Good Government Chairman Camilo Sabio has resigned from his other posts as chairman of the board of government-seized corporations, bowing to the mounting pressure from the Senate for PCGG officials to get their act together in going after the Marcos wealth.

During the budget deliberations at the Senate, Sabio declared he will quit his other positions to focus on his work as PCGG chief.

Sabio said President Arroyo has retained him in the coco levy cases with the assistance of Finance Secretary Margarito Teves and Archbishop Fernando Capalla to work on “amicable settlement cases.”

Sen. Joker Arroyo raised the question on the PCGG chairman’s various directorships and positions in government-owned and controlled corporations.

Arroyo warned Sabio might end up compromising his position as PCGG chief with his multiple positions in sequestered companies.

Arroyo said the PCGG has been controversial since its inception some 20 years ago.

Arroyo, then executive secretary of former President Corazon Aquino who created the PCGG, said it has a “long, long way to go” before the government can be able to put closure on recovering the long list of alleged ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses.

“Even I think 30 years, this will not be finished. We suggested that they segregate the cases, which have overlapped from one case to another. In a Marcos case, there are also cases intertwined... How do you sort that out? So we asked them to make a list,” Arroyo added.

Arroyo said he was satisfied that Sabio has declared his resignation from his other positions.

Sabio got the ire of Sen. Richard Gordon during a Senate hearing on the PCGG during the 13th Congress.

Sabio was slapped with contempt charges after heated debates with Gordon in one of the Senate hearings, prompting the senator to call for his detention inside the Senate premises last year.

The PCGG chairman, as well as directors, got a dressing down from the senators for their extravagant lifestyles and alleged misuse of PCGG resources.

The PCGG oversees the companies suspected of being part of the hidden wealth of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

There are about 40 major sequestered companies led by PCGG-appointed managers. More than 200 other firms do not have PCGG-appointed managers.

Last June, Arroyo required all presidential appointees in government-owned corporations and financial institutions, including line and attached agencies, to resign to give her a free hand in reorganizing her administration.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita earlier admitted that even PCGG officials led by Sabio had yet to tender their courtesy resignations.

Ermita said he was told the PCGG officers were still awaiting the resignations of most of their appointees in the sequestered companies.

Ermita identified the four sequestered companies which had already complied with the President’s directive as the Bataan Shipyard and Engineering Corp., United Coconut Planters Bank-CIIF Oil Mills and television networks NBN-4 and RPN-9.