Lost momentum

Under the General Appropriations Act of 2002, a budget of P1.357 billion was allotted for the pensions of Philippine National Police retirees. Of that amount, P272.932 million was earmarked for an increase in the pensions of 17,073 retirees effective July 1, 2002.

To this day the retirees have not received their pension adjustment. Why? The Department of Budget and Management, with its eagle-eyed chief Emilia Boncodin, noticed that the PNP submitted the names of the same claimants for certain years. Other claimants are neither pensioners nor the surviving relatives of dead pensioners, the DBM noticed. In short, the DBM first wants the list purged of ghost beneficiaries before the money is released.

Boncodin wrote to PNP chief Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. on Oct. 25 last year. To this day there has been no action on Boncodin’s letter.

Who prepared the list of claimants? The officer who asked the DBM for a notice of cash allocation covering the pension increase was the comptroller at the time, Director Reynaldo Velasco, but he became Metro Manila police commander on July 8 last year. The new comptroller is Director Victor Signey.

A similar case had rocked the Armed Forces of the Philippines when Orlando Mercado was defense secretary. I remember Mercado joking about the dead and people who had to be more than 100 years old still claiming veterans’ benefits.

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From retirees’ benefits to vehicle repairs and big-ticket public works contracts, there’s always a buck to be made for the unscrupulous in government. There is always something – in the words of Sen. Panfilo Lacson – "for the boys."

Occasionally someone gets caught and ends up detained without bail for plunder. Most of the time, however, crooks manage to take the money and run. Crooked public officials learned their lessons decades ago: don’t sign anything, leave no paper trail, keep possible witnesses to the barest minimum. If you’re tech-savvy, watch out for bugs and other surveillance equipment.

If the crook is still stupid enough to leave a paper trail, he can do what lawyers do best: obfuscate. Fudge the numbers, make the wording so vague the courts will need to call in a linguistic expert to interpret every sentence.

As for potential witnesses, they can be silenced with a bribe or a threat. If they refuse, they can be taken out.

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EDSA Dos held the promise of breaking this deeply entrenched culture of corruption. But now the administration itself stands accused of accepting bribes.

I think, however, that the Senate’s bribery probe involving the power deal won by Argentine firm Impsa (Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anonima) will end up like most other Senate probes: inconclusive.

Sen. John Osmeña should not waste taxpayers’ money by going to Florida to get the deposition of Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez on the purported $14-million bribery. Jimenez, even after he had accused resigned justice secretary Hernando Perez of accepting a $2-million bribe, had repeatedly emphasized that the money had nothing to do with the Impsa deal. Even in his accusations against First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, Jimenez also did not mention Impsa.

If Osmeña wants to follow Jimenez and his two congressional sidekicks all the way to balmy Miami, he can do so, but he should use his own money. By the way, did Juan de la Cruz pay for the US junket of MJ’s sidekicks Willie Villarama and Prospero Pichay? Villarama can’t even tell an arraignment from an initial court appearance.

Something may come out of the looming Senate testimony of businessman Ernest Escaler and banker Ramon Arceo, brother-in-law of Nani Perez. Better make sure they don’t skip town before their scheduled testimonies. If Osmeña gets anything out of those two men, then he may have a better excuse to fly to Miami.

What will Escaler say? The talk is he will testify that the $2 million deposited in Coutts Bank in Hong Kong was a foreign exchange transaction.

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Andres Sta. Maria, legal counsel of CBK Power Company Limited, wrote to explain that there is no direct government guarantee for the Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan build and rehabilitate project, in the sense that the government has not guaranteed the repayment of the company’s loans.

What CBK Power got was an indirect guarantee for the obligation of the National Power Corp. (NPC) to Impsa. The indirect guarantee, Sta. Maria emphasized, was approved during the Estrada administration, under the Government Acknowledgment and Consent Agreement or GACA.

The legal opinion issued by Perez on Jan. 24, 2001 confirmed that the GACA entered into by the previous administration was legal and binding, Sta. Maria wrote.

Why seek Perez’s opinion? "In large international transactions, such as NPC IPP projects, the lawyers of the parties are usually asked to confirm, through a legal opinion, that the contracts entered into by their respective clients are valid and binding," Sta. Maria explained. "This is what was requested of Sec. Perez, who, as Secretary of Justice, is legal counsel to the Philippine Government."

That’s CBK-Impsa’s side. The full text of Sta. Maria’s letter was printed yesterday.

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Whatever the outcome of this controversy, I must point out that corruption has become so much a part of doing business in Asia that some of the biggest companies particularly in Europe include allocations for grease money in their company expenditures in this part of the world. The cost of corruption is often passed on to ordinary folks like you and me, in the form of higher fees for products and services.

The administration born of EDSA Dos (and, by extension, EDSA One) was expected to make a significant dent in the battle against corruption. The battle did start with a bang, with deposed President Joseph Estrada being placed under arrest. But the momentum has been lost, and the administration may spend the rest of the year fending off accusations of corruption.

Everyone looks like a villain in the Impsa scandal. It’s an ugly thought as the nation marks the second anniversary – has it been only two years? – of People Power II.