From P5 million to P100 million?

Congressman Mikey Arroyo is crying political harassment and denial of due process in the filing of P73.8 million tax evasion charges in the DOJ against him and his wife by the BIR.

Before he became a Congressman, Mikey Arroyo as Pampanga Vice Governor declared only P5.72 million net worth in 2001. 

As reported by his SALN filed as a Congressman, his assets ballooned to P100 million in 2008 including a P40 million mansion in La Vista, a big house in Lubao, millions in stocks and about a dozen luxury cars in his garage including a Lamborghini. He was even reported to have given expensive gifts to his girlfriends.

The BIR has good reason to charge him with tax evasion. Worst, he even failed to file tax returns for three years (2005, 2008, 2009). He also failed to declare in his 2008 and 2009 SALN a $1.32 million beach front property he bought in San Francisco, California.

How about Congressman Iggy Arroyo who was just renting a house in Bacolod before GMA became President whose networth declared in his SALN as a Congressman zoomed to P150 million?

It would be good for Liberal Party Congressmen to set the example by asking the BIR to audit their SALN filed in the House. To begin with, the House leadership can make available to news media the SALN and income tax returns of all its members.

Commissioner Kim Henares should also audit the tax returns of those who contributed from P20-P500 million to P-Noy’s campaign funds.

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RIGHT MOVE, SEC. LUISTRO. .It is accepted worldwide that preschool or kindergarten classes for children below 6 years is a necessary first step for a child’s education. In fact, children of the richer and middle class families enrolled in private schools go thru preschool, some of them for two years. My own kids went to three years of nursery and kindergarten. Only 10 percent of public school students nationwide go to preschool, a program we started when we were in the Senate. Preschool should have been added to the educational ladder years ago. We had hoped that it could be implemented in the 2011-2012 school year as part of the R+12 Program but again it has been postponed due to lack of funds. DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro has come up with a creative stopgap solution: an eight-week preschool crash course for all those entering grade one next June. This will utilize existing classrooms and teachers during the 10-week summer vacation.

Congratulations to Sec. Luistro. One suggestion: ask the preschool teachers of the private universities on vacation to volunteer to help implement the program. Teachers of La Salle, Ateneo, UST, CEU, Xavier and other private schools can help to make the eight-week crash course program successful. Sec. Luistro can also tap the association of private preschools now operating in the country for help.

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INVEST HERE. .GSIS President and CEO Robert Vergara should be commended for scrapping the GSIS Global Investment Program (GIP) which totals $670 million, a pet project of former CEO Winston Garcia started in 2008. The foreign investment earned less than six percent. If the GSIS had invested the money in the local blue chip stocks like San Miguel, PLDT, Aboitiz Equities, Ayala Corporation or Philex, it would have earned at least 30-50 percent. It’s not too late. Invest it here now. It was hard to justify that while we were inviting foreign investors to come here, a government agency decided to invest abroad. Someone must have gotten a hefty commission.

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HEARTLESS HIJACKERS. .A Rural Transit bus enroute to Pagadian City was hijacked in Tungawan, Zamboanga, Sibugay by four armed men who shot dead three passengers and critically wounded two others. Killed were Major Julistidi Arasid of the 18th Infantry Battalion, his wife and bus marshal, Lito dela Cruz. Critically wounded were Federico Luchavez, another bus marshal and a son of Major Arasid. The hijackers burned the bus. This is the third Rural Transit bus hijacked in the last eight months.

Four hijackers robbed Alabanar Quadri, 46, owner of a saloon in Tagaytay City of P300,000 in cash and valuables and his Toyota Fortuner at the Aguinaldo Highway in Dasmariñas, Cavite.

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TELECOM SCANDAL. .The biggest scandal in India is the underpriced sale of 2G, 3G and 4G licenses. The Minister of Communications is under fire for depriving the government of hundreds of millions of dollars had the proper price been paid for the licenses.

Now hear this, under GMA, 2G, 3G and 4G licenses in the Philippines have been awarded for free. No money was paid to the government. As the bribes paid it must have gone into hundreds of millions of pesos, considering the billions in profits it has brought to the telcos who got the licenses.

Now hear this, too. The Aquino administration is awarding five digital channels each to TV networks again for free. Congress should investigate.

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TIDBITS. . . BI Commissioner Ricardo David revealed there are 1,276 Nigerians in the country, 970 of them tourists as of March, 2011. Many of them and South Koreans are doing business illegally without BI permits. Start deporting them, General David and start asking Ronald Ledesma and his boys to explain their neglect.

Economist Peter Wallace said that 8 of the 10 earlier announced public private partnership projects to be awarded this year are delayed to 2012 due to unfinished feasibility studies. Among them, NAIA Expressway (Phase II), the Panglao, Bohol, Puerto Princesa, Palawan and Daraga, Albay airports.

The return of $132,000 to the Philippine government representing the sale of a house owned by Erlinda Yambao Ligot in Los Angeles is conclusive evidence Gen. Jacinto Ligot and his wife had illegal wealth stashed in the US.

Greetings to our readers Willie Villarama, Vice Mayor Francis Zamora and Jimjim Yaokasim.