Of cheats and cheated

Administration allies in Congress have again succeeded in "killing" the renewed attempts to impeach President Arroyo and they finally pounded the last nail to its coffin at the House Committee on Justice the other night. Pro-Arroyo solons led by Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman cited that the impeachment cases were actually "dead on arrival" and therefore, they just administered the formal last rites to put these issues against the President to rest.

Among other impeachment charges whom the opponents of Mrs. Arroyo tried very hard to revive but failed was the May 2004 presidential election fraud accusations against her. Naturally, the Opposition stalwarts at the Lower House were fuming after they failed anew to convince their colleagues to support this political process of impeachment. President Arroyo emerged victorious once more from being impeached on the "lying, cheating, and stealing" charges against her. The Opposition felt cheated for the second time.

As if there is not enough of these "cheating" cases, the 17,821 successful examinees who passed the Nursing Licensure Examinations (NLE) are again going through the angst and anxiety of their testing days last June 11 and 12 this year. This is because they might be made to retake the NLE after being lumped together with a number of "cheats" who passed their way through such dastardly act.

Naturally, it is not only the NLE examinees but their parents as well who are up in arms over this possibility being explored by government authorities to hopefully help restore the tarnished integrity of their earning the license as registered nurses. But there has been deafening silence from Malacañang Palace amid this brouhaha on the NLE which involved appointees by no less than the President in the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) and the various boards under it like those in the Board of Nursing that administer specific licensure examinations of various professions. The Chief Executive appoints members of these boards in the PRC.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the other day the Palace is just awaiting the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the PRC to complete their respective probes on these alleged "cheating" incident in the NLE which also involved certain private individuals from nursing review centers. In the meantime, our country’s pride of producing the best nurses in the world has been badly damaged by this controversy.

There is also another case of cheating that has caused our country enormous economic impact. Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, revealed the other day the alleged P31 billion in unpaid taxes by Mirant Philippines. This is an American power company that owns huge power plants in Sual, Pangasinan, Pagbilao, Quezon, and in Toledo City, Cebu.

As per Salceda’s public disclosures, Mirant has been into tax-shaving scheme while Filipinos have to bear the brunt of high electricity costs they pass on to consumers, and in fact, paying more with the imposition of the 12 percent value added tax (VAT) with the removal of the VAT exemption on electricity consumption.

But what surprised me was Salceda’s revelation that when President Arroyo learned about this alleged tax avoidance by Mirant, she supposedly snubbed the company officials of Mirant who wanted to pay a courtesy call on her at Malacanang Palace last Monday. Salceda, who has direct access to the President as one of her economic advisers, knows what he is talking about it. After all, she is his former economics mentor and therefore he could easily read her body language. "She is obviously pissed off with this company," Salceda said.

And to think Marcie Fuller, Mirant’s former president and chief executive officer (CEO) in the country until she left earlier this year, used to be a constant scuba diving partner of President Arroyo in leisure diving expeditions to the world famous Tubbataha Reef marine reserve in the Cebu deep, and elsewhere in the country while they were yet chummy with each other. What’s more curious is the fact that Ms. Fuller is one of the members of President Arroyo’s International Board of Advisors. Arroyo even convened a meeting with some of them last week while she was in Cebu where she addressed the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Council (ABAC).

Mirant’s tax avoidance apparently had been going on through these years. As CEO of this company, Fuller should very well know this and perhaps, she thought they could get away with it, being a close pal of the Philippine President. I shudder at the thought if there were other companies whose CEOs are also very close friends of President Arroyo and who might be in the same tight fix where Mirant is in.

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I received a very interesting e-mail from one of the millions of readers of The STAR website. He introduced himself as Lito Chicano, Project Professional, JMA Architecture Studios from San Diego, California. He was reacting to my previous day’s column about the on-going transfer of the Malacanang Clinic out of its present location in San Rafael St. to the Presidential Security Group (PSG) Hospital across the Pasig River.

He wrote: "My mother was a Malacanang employee until she retired and I recall Malacanang Clinic when it was still next to the administrative building (JP Laurel St.) close to Saint Jude to the other end of JP Laurel close to San Miguel Church and Aguado St. and then to their present site. My Aunt used to work at the Clinic and we used to live right in front of the Freedom Park, just a few steps to the Clinic. I remember my mom knowing most doctors and staff there where I can just go there by myself and my mom will just give them a call from her office in the Administrative Building to expect me. I remember Dr. (Rolando) Deduyo because he was the one who circumcised me. I remember the old (original) folks because they were like families where we got invited to their individual parties and we have invited them to take vacation to our province.  Your piece actually got me started reminiscing. The old San Miguel, the Marcoses, Malacanang, Milky Way (Restaurant). I miss it all."

We all surely miss the services of Malacanang Clinic following the President’s decision to proceed with its transfer. Now, we would wait what those bright minds in the Palace intend to do with the prime real estate property that would be vacated by the Clinic.

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