Why aren't we surprised with ZTE absolutions?

Corn farmers should be rejoicing these days. For the first time ever, harvest of yellow variety is expected to breach 3 million tons in the second half of 2009. This spells big cash for those who bravely replanted despite 2008’s bad cropping. But farmers are dejected. Earlier this year President Arroyo’s economic managers had induced her to allow temporarily tariff-free imports of corn and substitutes. This drove feed millers and other corn processors to stock up from abroad. Bodegas are so full they won’t need to refill inventories till yearend. By then corn prices would have fallen below production cost, raw stocks rotted, and farmers gone hungry. No one might replant next time around. A corn crisis looms.

The mess started in early 2008. Too much La Niña rains disrupted pollination and then flooded up corn farms in Cagayan Valley; rampaging separatists burned crops in Central Mindanao. Yet syndicated traders were scooping up meager harvests at only P10 per kilo, farm gate, when world price was at P20, tariff-free. Farmers lost heart. The Cabinet anticipated a yellow-corn shortfall of 800,000 tons. To counter the trend, the Philippine Maize Federation urged Agriculture Sec. Arthur Yap to set a government-subsidized price of P13 per kilo. Yap stalled. Prices recovered in late 2008. And despite a spike in farm input costs, most farmers decided to try again, in anticipation of better rates in 2009.

But then came E.O. 765 allowing tariff-free imports in 2009. More than 1.3 million tons came in, or 500,000 more than the shortfall of 800,000.

Reportedly the agriculture and trade offices, and Tariff Monitoring Council are blaming each other for the fiasco. But Philmaize head Roger Navarro says Yap is most accountable, being the point man for agriculture policy. He sees no succor either from Congress. The anticipated bumper crop of 3 million tons would go to waste, since the usual corn buyers have imports good to last the rest of the year. Farmers would end up selling at less than P5 per kilo at best.

To ease the crisis, Arroyo told the National Food Authority finally to buy 300,000 tons at P13 per kilo. Normally, Navarro says, government price intervention in 10 percent of the harvest is enough to influence the trading of the remaining 90 percent. Not this time, with imported corn overflowing in feed mills. Navarro says the government must buy up 50 percent, or 1.5 million tons. But that’s out of the question for Arroyo.

* * *

Why aren’t Filipinos surprised with the Ombudsman’s absolution of the principal players in the ZTE scam? Simple. They know too well that the anti-graft body is presently constituted to cover the tracks of a thieving administration.

That Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez is facing impeachment when her office cleared the First Couple of ZTE filth underscores the sham. She may have recused from the ZTE investigation, but the fact remains that she was First Gentleman Mike Arroyo’s law school chum. Not to forget, President Gloria Arroyo was her appointer. Gutierrez’s deputy Mark Jalandoni too may have had nothing on paper to do with the probe. But he is said to be a nephew of ZTE contract signatory Larry Mendoza, and son of Iggy Arroyo’s sabong buddy. Best bets are on Arroyo’s congressional gofers to in turn absolve Gutierrez of impeachment raps.

And so there’s this suspicion that the ZTE fact-finders turned blind eyes to the facts: Deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro, Emilio Gonzales III, Robert Kallos, Rodolfo Elman, Cesar Asuncion, and Jesus Micael. Remember them well. Their names may soon go down in history with the likes of Virgilio Garcillano, Lintang Bedol and Jocjoc Bolante.

Cleared were the dramatis personae of the ZTE contract: approver Gloria and influencer Mike Arroyo, signatory Larry Mendoza, over-pricers Lorenzo Formoso and Elmer Soñeja, and Chinese bribers Yu Yong, Hou Weigui, Fan Yan and George Zhuyin.

Only former Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos and ex-economic secretary Romy Neri were indicted. Why them? Abalos, because clearing him this time around would have highlighted the Ombudsman’s original sin of letting him off the similarly scandalous MegaPacific scam. And Neri, because for Malacañang he is unreliable and expendable, having once described Mrs. Arroyo as “evil” and getting the goat of cronies like Ricky Razon.

Not even investigated were Abalos’s fellow-brokers: Ruben Reyes, Leo San Miguel, retired police general Quirino dela Torre, and chief of staff Jimmy Paz. This gives a cue that the Ombudsman case against Abalos would be weak — like those filed earlier against other friends of the Palace. In the first place, investigating them would have ensured their inclusion in the charge sheet, which in turn would bolster the evidence against Abalos.

So there.

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]