Government set to reorganize PCGG

The government is set to reorganize the Philippine Construction on Good Government (PCGG) with the recent resignation of former head Magdangal Elma.

Elma was replaced by PCGG Commissioner George Sarmiento who was designated officer-in-charge.

Finance Secretary-designate Alberto Romulo said the reorganization is critical to government’s efforts to dispose sequestered companies.

"The first step is to reorganize PCGG and then we can proceed with the disposal of some of these sequestered items," Romulo said.

The PCGG was created in 1986 during the term of President Corazon C. Aquino to administer companies and other entities sequestered from cronies of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, most of which were alleged to have been acquired illegally.

At the height of the jueteng scandal last year, the PCGG postponed the sale of several sequestered assets worth about P2 billion.

The PCGG deferred the biddings for government‘s shares in Eastern Telecommunications Philippines, Philippine Overseas Telecommunications Corp., Chemfields Inc. and Oceanic Wireless Network Inc.

The PCGG said the auction of these assets will have to wait until the market conditions improve. Charges that deposed President Joseph Estrada was the key beneficiary of jueteng proceeds resulted in the weakening of the financial and capital markets, and foreign investors packed up their bags as the political crisis worsened.

The PCGG has to put off the sale because it feared it might not be able to put a premium on the value of the assets.

Another reason cited for the deferment of the assets‘ disposal was the high appraisal fees being quoted by firms valuating the shares in preparation for the bidding and the PCGG did not want to spend so much for this.

The PCGG sold last Oct. 27, a 240-square meter lot in Brixtonville, Caloocan City which was sequestered from Marcos crony Alejo Ganut.
Last year, the PCGG was set to turn over to the National Treasury the sum of P337 million form the sale of 68,838 sequestered shares in the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., the Fairchild Compound in Baguio City in the name of Mid-Pasig Land Development Corp., and the Talaga property in Mariveles, Bataan under Anchor Estate Corp.