Clark dealmakers to bestow airport

Remember when I exposed April Gloria Arroyo’s midnight posting of her personal manicurist to our Pag-IBIG Housing Fund board of trustees? Malacañang then was forced to release other appointees, although similarly without their credentials. One name mentioned was Rowena del Rosario. Question: is she the Rowena del Rosario who is First Gentleman Mike Arroyo’s personal accountant? Palace long-timers confirm so, and resent Arroyo’s making the Presidency her family’s placement office. One insider describes the recent appointments, including Arroyo’s gardener as Luneta Park Administration deputy, as distasteful. Another laments that it’s like Emperor Caligula naming his favorite horse Consul of Rome.

During the election ban Arroyo signed dozens of appointments of lackeys to sinecures, some of them tenured positions.

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Remember too when I exposed in March last-minute attempts of Clark International Airport Corp. chairman Nestor Mangio to give a Kuwaiti firm the facility’s operation for 25 years? President Arroyo acted swiftly then, telling the board of directors to terminate negotiations at once with the Al-Kharafy Group. It was the campaign, so thorny for Arroyo’s congressional run that minions were rushing a midnight deal in her Pampanga province.

The issue didn’t end there, though. With elections over, other board members this time are at it again. Two directors who had opposed the Kuwaiti deal are now rushing talks with a Malaysian firm to expand and operate the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport Terminal-2. Another faction is talking with Koreans. Both stand to gain personally from either party, whose unsolicited proposals are now pending with the Joint Venture Selection Committee.

From their papers, it seems that the Malaysian and Korean objectives are the same. The proposals are marginally feasible. But both groups are eyeing 200 hectares of prime lots that are made to appear as idle raw land to be acquired for a song then used for zillion-dollar profit.

The tactics are similar too. The director-brokers want their respective foreign patrons declared by the JVSC as “original proponent.” With such status, they would tie the hands of new CIAC directors to be appointed by President-apparent Noynoy Aquino. The newcomers would have no choice but to recognize either the Malaysian or Korean group, and negotiate with no one else for the development contract. Why, an influence peddler has been promising extended terms of the old directors to the new board.

Hopefully Aquino’s advisers know how to legally revoke midnight awards of “original proponent” status by the outgoing Arroyo admin. And rescind too the NEDA concoction of “joint venture” as a new form of build-operate-transfer.

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Where’s the promised lowering of passenger and cargo rates once the modernization of the Port of Manila begins? If shipping lines are reneging on agreements to cut fares, then the government should compel them.

Port users and sea liners got a 10-percent tariff cut upon a private operator’s takeover in April of the dilapidated North Harbor. The slash would make them competitive while the Manila North Harbour Port Inc. refurbishes the facility. Four dozen shipping firms, especially the big four, should have passed on the savings to passengers and shippers. But it’s been more than a month since; shipping firms are silent about lowering fares. What’s being heard from the piers are shrill threats of workers’ strikes, mostly from a ship owner who lost the renovation bidding.

Passengers traveling south should have tickets P100-cheaper, along discounted cargo fees. In the absence of such, most just ride roll-on roll-off ferries thru the much cheaper rates at the Port of Batangas. Others simply fly, taking advantage of airline promos.

Talk at the Manila port is that ship owners are more concerned with delaying the reconstruction. Summer is almost over and students will be sailing back to school towns, but shipping lines are not talking cut-prices. Instead they’re poised to make a killing once more from steep fares yet poor, unsafe rides.

For decades shipping lines had misused the piers as container yards. Authorities contracted a private developer to arrest the deterioration while lowering port usage charges. In turn the Philippine Liner and Shipping Association should have imposed fare cuts by members. Failing so, the Maritime Industry Authority must now step in.

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Following the leader, corrupt low-level officials have contrived their own rackets. Some registers of deeds collude with the BIR to delay transfer of land titles until applicants pay up. Local officials appoint relatives as provincial or municipal treasurer. Agency heads post friends as fixers.

Reader Fernan Angeles details another scam, this time at a city engineer’s office in Metro Manila, although it could happen anywhere. All Angeles needed was a certificate of electrical inspection, for Meralco link to his house. But the official wanted him to submit first a building permit even though he wasn’t erecting anything. The burdensome but unnecessary condition was made apparently to make him pay under the table. Angeles had worked at city hall before, and so complained to the administrator. But how many other applicants does the crooked engineer victimize each day?

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“You can only make demands on a person when you love him. Then it ceases to be a demand. It becomes an invitation.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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