RP privatization plan

Senator Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel III was suddenly making media headlines recently, warning the country that the Palace is about to embark on a midnight sale of billions of pesos worth of government assets under the privatization scheme.

He says the money is probably going to be used by the Palace in the coming elections.

Pimentel raised scary warnings about alleged plans to sell the country’s Fujimi property in Japan, as well as the National Center for Mental Health and Welfare, Boys Town, premises of the National Penitentiary, the Home for the Aged, the Food Terminal in Taguig and a host of other multi-billion real estate assets.

But while we should we concerned about how the proceeds of the sale of government assets are used, isn’t Pimentel’s scenario going a little too far?

Based on the tenor of his statement, one might be led to believe that the privatization of these billions of pesos-worth of assets was a hastily put up plan hatched overnight in a bid to raise money for the 2010 elections.

We don’t think so.

It appears these assets have long been part of an overall privatization plan. The fact that there have been no formal takers so far underscore one important point: that disposing all of these assets via what Pimentel calls a “midnight sale” is next to impossible. There are approximately six months to go before the 2010 polls. No government, no matter how efficient, can dispose of all of those assets within that short a period of time.

The way we understand it, there really is a Philippine Privatization Plan that has put together a systematic inventory of government assets available for disposition to the private sector. What Pimentel did not include in his tirade is the fact that these assets have been determined to be better off handled by professional private sector groups. It is not within the competence of the government to run these assets and optimize their value.

Pimentel may have attempted to paint a picture of the current administration as “privatization crazy”. What he may have omitted in his recent outburst is that previous administrations had inked records of sorts, too, as far as disposing government-owned assets were concerned.

For example, under the administration of the late President Aquino, the government sold 466 assets worth a total of P194 billion. The sale of government assets must have easily hit P100 billion during President Ramos’ time when the government sold the prime Fort Bonifacio to the private sector.

Pimentel ranted about the alleged misuse of the proceeds of asset privatization. To prove his point, he gave the privatization of Fort Boni as an example, failing to note that this was Ramos’ transaction, not Arroyo’s.

At the end of the day, it was difficult to understand the logic behind Pimentel’s latest outburst. We can only view this as a lame attempt to scare us. Maybe, the good senator has overlooked the fact that bashing the President may no longer be a worthwhile endeavour at this point. If he is to support a candidate for the presidency, he might have better use of his time promoting that candidate, preferably one who is more of a doer than a talker.

Take Philippine National Railways chair Mike Defensor for one. He is less of a talker and more of an achiever of the near-impossible. It will be recalled that it was he who put together a team of government bureaucrats which worked for the opening of the mothballed NAIA Terminal III.

Despite this ability, Defensor has remained a man with his feet firmly planted on the ground. We recall that he earned much admiration in 2007 when he readily conceded defeat in the senatorial race, the first to do so. Many saw the act as the hallmark of a man with characteristic humility.

The quality of humility was only further underscored by his graciousness in accepting the unfortunate insults hurled against him by a controversial judge before whom he brought his case in the hope of obtaining justice.

Less talk and lots of action.

Trumped-up complaint?

A laudable project of the National Agribusiness Corp. (Nabcor) is now under threat in the wake of the highly suspicious move by the representative of a “non-bidder” to file a graft case against officials of Nabcor and its mother agency, the Department of Agriculture (DA), before the Office of the Ombudsman.

Allan Ragasa, claiming to represent a company called Sunvar, has filed a complaint against Nabcor president Alan Javellana and others for awarding to the Integrated Refrigeration Systems and Services, Inc. (IRSSI) a P455.2-million project for the acquisition of 98 units of multi-function, ice-making machines with liquid quick freeze (LQF) capability as part of the stepped-up government program to provide postharvest facilities to farmers and fisherfolk and make farming and fishing more profitable for them.

Sources say Ragasa was comparing apples and oranges in saying the unit price of the BIF machines is far costlier than that of the ice-making facilities previously acquired by the government as part of its postharvest program.

Standard ice-making facilities only produce ice used by fisherfolk and other agriculture stakeholders to store or preserve their catch or harvests. In the case of the new Nabcor project, though, ice-making is but a bonus of this BIF equipment, which can store or freeze a lot of commodities from fish, chicken and pork to fruits and non-leafy vegetables without using ice—and, more importantly, still preserve the freshness, quality and taste of the BIF-frozen goods.

Why did Ragasa file a supplemental complaint last Nov. 18 including Yap among the respondents when the secretary has had absolutely nothing to do with this Nabcor project? True, Nabcor is under the DA, but it is government-owned or –controlled corporation and, hence, an autonomous or independent agency run by its officers and board of directors.

Second, why did Ragasa file the complaint on the ground that the bidding was supposedly rigged when three other prospective bidders—Kolonwel, JOAVI, and Instrumech Philippines Inc.—were represented during the public bidding yet opted at the last minute not to submit their respective bids. If they are saying that the BIF units are overpriced and that they could supply the same kind of equipment at a cheaper price, why didn’t they submit their bids there and then?

But as it turned out, only IRSSI had submitted a formal bid that met all the requirements set by Nabcor’s Bidding and Awards Committee (BAC), hence the corporation had no choice but to award the contract to the lone bidder, which it won fair and square.

This new technology used by IRSSI was found by the BAC to be really safe because the fishery products subjected to the equipment’s solution has been approved by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) under its Microbiological Method of Bacteriological Analysis, as fit for human consumption.

So, why drag Yap into the fray? Is this a devious, last-minute ploy to scuttle the IRSSI contract for this laudable farm project—and force the DA, through the secretary himself, to hold another public bidding for the benefit of the non-bidders who had actually attended the Nabcor-sponsored bidding but opted to back out at the last minute?

It is just too bad if the project will be junked altogether just because of the highly suspicious move of a losing “non-bidder” and its apparent dummy to throw a monkey wrench on the delivery of machines that will be used to help farmers and fisherfolk reduce wastages arising from postharvest losses and also help preserve the quality of their produce much longer.

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