Usual suspect

Just a few days apart, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II was linked last week as prime suspect to two different issues.

Roxas was first suspected as one of the two or three unnamed Cabinet officials who have been allegedly uncooperative with rehabilitation czar, ex-Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson in crafting the national government’s program for areas devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda last Nov. 8. Lacson heads the Office of the Presidential Adviser for Rehabilitation and Recovery (OPARR), a Cabinet-ranked post that has oversight functions on all government agencies and instrumentalities involved in the reconstruction of Yolanda-hit areas.

President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III appointed Lacson as OPARR chief last Dec. 1. On the eve of the six-month anniversary of the Yolanda tragedy, Lacson reported the accomplishments so far of the OPARR. Lacson said the OPARR could have done much more but sadly was being slowed down by two or three Cabinet officials who he refused to identify.

Though he was not directly named in the first instance, the name of Roxas immediately surfaced because of a previous incident involving his work in the post-Yolanda reconstruction efforts of the government. Roxas, Liberal Party president-on-leave, had run-ins with certain local government officials in the Yolanda-struck province of Leyte over bureaucratic requirements.

Buttonholed the next day by reporters at the sidelines of the flood summit held at the House of Representatives, Roxas brushed aside media speculations. Roxas swore that he and Lacson have very good working relations dating back to their days at the Senate. He fondly recalled how Lacson referred to him as his “4 o’clock” and in turn, he referred to Lacson as his “10 o’clock.” Lacson, former chief of the Philippine National Police, used the hands of the clock to locate their alphabetical seating arrangement at the Senate. Roxas explained he was seated on the right side behind Lacson. “So Ping knows I have his back,” Roxas quipped.

A day after he dismissed speculations on a supposed rift with Lacson, Roxas was again tagged as the cause for the sudden resignation of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) chairperson Margarita “Margie” Juico who submitted her letter of resignation to Executive Secretary Paquito “Jojo” Ochoa last Thursday. President Aquino immediately accepted her resignation the next day.

This cropped up after Roxas figured in yet another unsavory cussing incident last April at the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club in Mandaluyong City. Despite making a public apology, the board of directors of Wack Wack suspended Roxas from playing golf for two months at the exclusive membership club. The Wack Wack Golf Club president happens to be Philip Ella Juico, husband of the newly resigned PCSO chief.

The name of Roxas came up after a presidential ranting was issued against Juico and the PCSO Board of Directors. In a strongly worded memorandum on June 11, 2013, President Aquino chastised them for not complying with the DILG’s formal request for information on the PCSO’s new numbers game called “Bingo Milyonaryo.” This is some kind of an online numbers game launched last year in addition to the lotto and small town lottery (STL) that PCSO operates. These state-sanctioned numbers games are purportedly designed to stop jueteng and other illegal numbers games proliferating in the countryside.

In his memo, P-Noy pointed out that part of the DILG mandate is direct supervision and control of the PNP and other law enforcement agencies in keeping peace and order and this presumably includes the campaign against illegal gambling activities. Being an attached agency under the Office of the President, P-Noy fumed at how PCSO “has refused to respond to formal and reasonable requests coming from the Secretary of the Interior and Local Government, who is considered an alter-ego of the President himself.”

“I find PCSO’s refusal inexcusable and unjustified considering that these requests are proper and legitimate, guided by instructions from the President,” the signed memo stated. Juico and the rest of the PCSO officials concerned were given ”stern warning” by the Chief Executive not to make the same mistake or be dealt with more severely.

Although she confirmed having been chastised for this, Juico insisted this happened a long time ago and that she had already talked to Roxas and ironed out with the DILG Secretary the procedures to prevent such a misunderstanding in the future. Juico explained it could have been prevented if only the DILG Secretary returned her phone calls. She wanted to verify from Roxas if indeed he was the one asking for the documents related to “Bingo Milyonaryo” because it was only his staff who made the request.

Apparently, P-Noy did not know the whole story when he blew his top at Juico. Or were there other reasons deeper than this? As early as a month ago, there was already coffee shop talk that Juico was on the way out due to the purported Palace displeasure on her, among other things, one of which is the growing Palace fear that the PCSO plunder case against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) might be another lost case. The ex-president has been under hospital detention for this case before the Sandiganbayan and a separate electoral sabotage case being tried at the Pasay City regional trial court.

Juico sneezed at this talk as baseless and therefore not the reason that finally drove her to resign. But she admitted that the “last straw” was being told that former Cavite governor Erineo Maliksi had already announced he would be the new PCSO chairman. She would not have believed it but one of the PCSO board directors personally heard it from Maliksi (Roxas’ pointman in Cavite) who announced it himself in a gathering in his province.

Juico said she has been in the public service for the past 23 years, starting as appointments secretary of P-Noy’s late mother, former President Corazon Aquino. And 17 years of that were spent at PCSO. Since she reached the mandatory age of retirement of 65, Juico decided it was the most opportune time to get out of the PCSO.

So this should put Roxas out of the firing line again as the usual suspect, until the next controversy spews him out.