Noynoy caught in CJ issue without fallback

RIGIDITY: President-in-waiting Noynoy Aquino should be advised by his layers of experts that when walking into a complicated situation it might be useful to make sure always that there is room behind him for possibly backpedalling when the unexpected happens.

An adroit leader knows when to take and not to take a rigid position, especially when events involving heavyweights are constantly swirling, sometimes possibly beyond one’s control. As they say in Tagalog, “huwag magsalita ng tapos.”

A case in point is Aquino’s statement that he would not recognize the Chief Justice to be appointed by President Arroyo. (She went ahead and appointed senior Associate Justice Renato Corona to replace Chief Justice Reynato Puno to take effect when the CJ retires tomorrow.)

What is now Aquino, who is not yet president, to do? His insisting on his hardline could lead to a constitutional crisis wherein a new president refuses to recognize the head of a co-equal body who was already in place 43 days ahead of his taking over as Chief Executive.

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LEGAL DEAD-END: The Aquino camp is now saying that out of delicadeza, President Arroyo should withdraw Corona’s appointment.

That would be an odd case of a legislator who is not yet the president telling a sitting president who still wields the full panoply of executive powers what to do.

Or, the Aquino camp says, Corona should decline the appointment. But why should he? The Supreme Court no less has said twice and with finality that the appointment is in order.

By tomorrow, Corona’s appointment would be a fait accompli, something beyond the restraining arm of somebody who still has to become the head of a separate branch (the Executive) a distant 45 days hence.

The incoming president may want to ask his advisers to write for him a more realistic statement or create a scenario that would slowly and gracefully pull him out of the legal dead-end.

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SUBIC PLAN: Across the bay, the Subic port has been envisioned to be a most competitive service and logistics center in Southeast Asia efficiently handling the movement of people, services and goods. That was a year after the American naval forces left in 1991.

Efforts of a parade of administrations to make Subic an internationally competitive trading hub have not been quite successful. For nearly two decades, locators and cargo handlers have failed to make the port a catalyst for progress in Central Luzon as planned.

Studies have shown that one big reason for this is that five of its existing ports have been left in disarray by cargo handlers and locators there.

Seeing this, the Harbour Centre Port Terminal Inc. had submitted an unsolicited proposal to Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority to develop and manage some parts of the naval supply depot.

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WORLD-CLASS: Under the unsolicited proposal, HCPTI would remit to SBMA a guaranteed income of $32 million over 25 years, which is the term of the contract, or $1.2 million to $1.3 million a year.

In addition, SBMA would have a 15-20-percent share of total port revenues each year for 25 years.

To compare, under current cargo handling operations, SBMA earns less than P20 million a year plus a revenue share of only 10-15 percent a year.

The HCPTI group says it envisions lower tariff rates but increasing revenues for SBMA. It commits itself to spend about P6 billion to improve port facilities and make it a world-class facility rivaling that of Singapore. The grand plan is to make it a world-class logistics and distribution center.

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NO CHALLENGE: The SBMA had subjected HCPTI’s proposal to a “Swiss challenge” by urging other parties to also submit bids and improve on the existing proposal.

SBMA Administrator Armand Arreza said that other bidders had until the end of last month to submit counterproposals if they wanted to become the government’s partner for the project. The Swiss challenge deadline expired last April 26 with no interested bidder showing up.

The absence of any other interested party should not mean the end of efforts to modernize the port. In the first place, there is already the HCPTI plan. That should be more than good enough if there are no other proposals.

Subic should not be held hostage to the existing cargo handlers in SBMA who have not undertaken or submitted a comprehensive development plan for port facilities.

They do not seem to have the imagination or the urge to go beyond simply handling fertilizers and other agricultural inputs along with imported logs and lumber.

Cargo handlers in Boton, Rivera, Alava and Bravo ports have not shown that they consider it their duty to improve the ports and invest on facilities for cargo handling that would upgrade the ports into big players.

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NO ALTERNATIVES: Some critics have said that the initial agreement between SBMA and HCPTI would lead to a monopoly in the cargo handling operations in Subic. But what viable alternatives have they offered? None.

At best, the present cargo handlers in Subic could only put in a maximum of P10-20 million annually, a far cry from the HCPTI offer for direct payment of fees over a 25-year period on top of P6 billion to improve the ports and another large sum for the acquisition of cargo handling equipment.

The bottom line is that those whose main activity was unloading fertilizers, logs and lumber and other cargoes at Subic seem to think they have a franchise on privilege, and even proprietary rights, over the Freeport.