'Unofficial' reasons for Ping's departure

His aides say that a hate blitz is being waged against Customs chief Angelito Alvarez. Parties unknown supposedly posted unsigned tarps seeking his ouster along President Noynoy Aquino’s route from the Davao City airport to downtown the other week. The aides also decry incessant media chatter that he is about to be sacked. Part of the black-prop allegedly is the floating of names of three possible replacements.

One of the three mentioned is a retiring Army lieutenant general. There’s a snag, though. Col. George Rabusa is implicating him, with 22 other active and retired generals and colonels, in an expanded plunder rap to be filed with the Department of Justice on Monday.

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Drab is the official line in Ping de Jesus’s resignation as Secretary of Transportation and Communications: “In the past 11 months he has laid the groundwork for good governance in the DOTC; on June 30 he will return to the private sector.”

The unofficial versions, more salacious, are as many as the insiders who would care to talk.

One story is that de Jesus has had it with influential subordinate Virginia Torres, a shooting buddy of President Noynoy Aquino. Torres as Land Transport Office chief had taken sides in an intra-corporate feud in the LTO’s info-tech provider, Stradcom. Last November she withheld Stradcom’s service fees (the amount has reached P1.12 billion as of May 2011). One dawn in December she let her favored faction invade the managing bloc’s database inside the LTO headquarters. After the latter retook control, de Jesus ordered Torres, thrice in three months, to honor the Stradcom contract. Thrice, as sole signatory of LTO checks, she defied him.

For Torres, de Jesus was the one taking sides, allegedly on advice of an undersecretary who once served as the controlling bloc’s lawyer. She primed LTO field offices to process vehicle registrations manually should Stradcom shut down. The justice department recommended her suspension. Instead she went on official leave on April 18. But not before filing in court a motion to defer any verdict on Stradcom’s collection case. Reports have it that Torres would return to work with a vengeance on June 17. With Aquino supposedly allowing her back, de Jesus turned in his irrevocable resignation last Monday.

Torres brings to mind Aquino’s agonizing over two other gun club pals whom the justice department deemed to have erred big in their jobs. Aquino had kept Rico E. Puno as Interior Undersecretary, and is looking for a new post for resigned prisons director Ernesto Diokno. Allegedly de Jesus was having a hard time with other Aquino friends under him.

Another version is that the DOTC has grown too big, so unwieldy. The “C” portfolio has been reassigned to the Commission on Information and Communications Technology under the Office of the President. Still the “T” requires five undersecretaries: one for land transportation, another for rails and aviation, a third for maritime, the last two for planning and for legal and finance. Under them are bureaus, and attached but fiscally autonomous oxymora. Examples: the Philippine Ports Authority, Maritime Industry Authority, Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, Manila International Airport Authority, Light Railway Transit Authority, and Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board. Their directors or commissioners can make decisions independent of overall DOTC directions, policies and programs.

Partly the situation is to blame for the failure to launch any Public-Private Partnership, mostly transport facilities. (Drafting the rules and reviews of awarded contracts also caused delays.) The Aquino admin is hard-pressed to launch the first 12 of 200 announced PPPs before his first State of the Nation in July.

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Chola Eleazar, 21, has always dreamed of becoming a teacher, to inspire indigent youths to strive in spite of their poverty. Sacrifice is the story of her life. She now has a chance to share it in her new job at St. Scholastica’s College in Manila, after graduating cum laude in BS Education, Philippine Normal University. “I will never be ashamed of what I went through,” she says.

Chola’s family is as poor as a church mouse. Her father is a road digger in Tarlac, her mother a farm hand. The four children — Chola is second — ate only twice a day. When they were in high school, she and the eldest worked for food weekends as vegetable farm weeders. Chola graduated salutatorian.

Chola thinks herself lucky to be taken in as a domestic by a kindly family in Manila. They sent her to college, free board and lodging, with a monthly stipend of P1,500. Combining university schooling with house chores was tough. But for Chola, enduring five years of hardship would mean her family’s rise from poverty. She endeavored to improve her grades.

PNU counselors took notice, and endorsed her for the Tzu Chi Foundation’s education assistance. A 45-year-old charity institution from Taiwan, Tzu Chi since 1995 in Manila has been sending penurious but bright students to elementary and high school. In 2005 it opened its college scholarships. Chola is grateful that the foundation’s grant helped her fulfill her dream of teaching.

In school year 2011-2012 Tzu Chi will be supporting around 900 scholars. They each need P40,000 for college, P14,000 for high school, and P6,000 for elementary. Wishing to help others like Chola, you can donate whatever amount. For inquiries, contact Chieh Fang Uy or Lolita Choa, (02) 7320001, or e-mail [email protected]

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