Remember Arroyo's economic tricks?

Yet to be proved or disproved in the Senate impeachment court is the ownership by Chief Justice Renato Corona’s family of, among others, five properties in posh La Vista subdivision and a condominium in One Burgundy Plaza in Quezon City. But no longer needing any proving, for many, are the owners of the subdivision and the condo building; that is, Mike and Gloria Arroyo.

The plushiest village along Katipunan Road, Loyola Heights, QC, La Vista is home to tycoons and high politicians. It was developed by the Tuason family, from which came Mike’s mother Lourdes Tuason Arroyo. Mike and siblings own adjacent manors on a sprawling hillside lot in the subdivision. So does his eldest son, Mikey, a sectoral congressman. Construction of the latter’s mansion drew controversy during the tenure of President Gloria, for it allegedly was beyond Mikey’s declared means. Gloria has a pending court petition to be transferred from hospital to house arrest in La Vista, on non-bailable charges of electoral sabotage.

Across the La Vista gate on Katipunan is One Burgundy Plaza. When she was Vice President, Gloria lived and held office in one of the bigger condo units. Mikey reportedly uses the unit nowadays. The building was the target of a bomb attack, some say contrived, during the heady second half of Gloria’s presidential tenure. Burgundy Realty Corp. erected the structure; a subsidiary is selling and renting out the units.

Burgundy Realty is part of the Burgundy Group of Companies. The conglomerate has interests in real estate, hotels and techno-parks, and petroleum and minerals. A subsidiary, Burgundy Global Exploration Corp., became controversial in 2006. Although with no track record in oil exploration or extraction, it wangled from the government the right to the Camago-Malampaya offshore oil phase. At that time the state-owned Philippine National Oil Co. already was negotiating with Malaysia-based Mitra Energy Ltd. Mitra not only had extensive experience in petroleum, but also was partnered with British Petroleum and Standard Charter Bank. Yet, energy department cronies of President Gloria pressured the PNOC to shift instead to Burgundy Global. The stink led newshounds to the trail. It turned out that Burgundy Global’s head was the Arroyos’ personal accountant; Mike was alleged to be the single biggest shareholder.

The PNOC president resigned, and the Malaysian and British oilmen left in disgust. Consequently Burgundy Global was awarded the rights to explore and mine four oilfields east of Palawan. With two partners it cornered two more offshore service contracts. Again unclear was how Burgundy Global grabbed six of the government’s total 33 SCs despite not having the $50 million to develop just one oilfield. It claimed to draw funding from a shifty outfit headquartered in the Bermudas.

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Gloria Arroyo is pushing to shift public debate from corruption during her tenure to the economy under President Noynoy Aquino. For, despite five ratings upgrades by global reviewers, two local polls show poverty and hunger to have worsened during Aquino’s 18 months in office. Even friendly analysts have criticized the Aquino administration for being gun-shy in spending for long needed infrastructures. In turn Aquino insists that the issue is not only the economy but also of integrity.

It will be recalled that Arroyo several times had employed trickery to present a rosy economic picture. One of these was her artificial electricity rate cuts. She forced the state power firm to absorb the differential between the private generators’ and the regulators’ approved rates. The scheme worked at first — until the government’s debts tripled to trillion-peso levels.

Another window dressing was the redefinition of “unemployed”. It used to mean simply how many workers, out of the total labor force, were jobless. To lower that number, Arroyo changed the meaning to exclude those who were jobless because not looking for work. So, those who had stopped applying for jobs because there just wasn’t any were no longer counted among the unemployed.

The worst tactic was political-economic in nature. She got the court to rule that her orders to Cabinet members to award contracts to cronies were covered by “executive privilege.” Previously, non-disclosure of presidential communications was reserved only for national security and diplomatic matters.

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Early last year Press Secretary Herminio Coloma sought the opinion of the Office of the Solicitor General. Was his predecessor’s joint venture legal, with the private developer to transform Broadcast City in Diliman, QC into residential-commercial condos?

The OSG said it wasn’t. The land valuation and contract terms were disadvantageous to the government. The absence of public bidding was spotty. Questionable was the Government Corporate Counsel’s keeping secret its consent to the deal.

Last Nov. Coloma formed a panel to review the contract, asking the OSG to join it and the technical working group. Immediately the OSG declined due to obvious conflict of interest. It reiterated its stand that the contract was invalid, and so must be stopped, not reviewed.

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