Will something good happen out of these?

The “these” are the current congressional investigations that revealed massive corruption in the highest echelons of the armed forces. The question is the most frequently asked of me by many people who have grown skeptical of anything that happens in Congress. The question is also asked with a sense of longing that sana naman, this time something good happens.

By “something good” they mostly mean that our governance system will finally be able to jail the bastards who monkeyed with a lot of our money even at the expense of the lives and welfare of the ordinary soldier. I always have to caution people not to put too much hope that something will happen. But yes, I do share their hopes because like them, I am also tired of the never ending mess that enriches public officials at the public’s expense.

The reason why I am moderating my hope is that even the supposedly lily white Aquino administration seems to be vacillating about going after the crooks. P-Noy himself bewailed media’s supposedly sensational coverage of the whistleblowers’ stories. It would have been more natural for P-Noy to encourage media to keep the temperature up so that it will be more difficult to eventually forget the sordid mess as is usual.

Even in the case of going after the Ombudsman, someone P-Noy himself called the single biggest obstacle in his drive for the “matuwid na landas”, Malacanang seems to have cooled down its position. Malacanang’s spokesman gave a half-hearted statement of support for the impeachment but only after the congressional effort gained ground. And he quickly emphasized that their priority was going after the prosecutors behind the compromise agreement with General Garcia. They seem to be afraid of Merci.

Malacanang’s tepid support for the impeachment case has led to rumors circulating in the grapevine that the change of heart was the result of a dossier on a senior official that the Ombudsman supposedly made known it possesses. That’s sheer speculation but if only the Palace was as proactive in going after the Ombudsman as it was during the early days after P-Noy’s inauguration, there would have been no reason to believe the rumor.

But wait… the congressional investigations have also revealed a serious mess at the Commission on Audit, the constitutional body supposed to protect the public purse from the shenanigans disguised as public servants. It was disgusting to hear present and past Chairs of the COA plead inability to control the organization because it has so many employees. Such public confession of incompetence should have been followed by Malacanang with bold action to correct the problem.

Now that the COA chair offered to leave once his replacement is named, P-Noy should just appoint whistleblower Heidi Mendoza who appeared to be more than qualified with the academic training and experience necessary for the job plus the patriotism to boot. The delay in taking action has also given rise to rumors that a powerful senior Palace official is protecting the incumbent COA chair due to college fraternity ties. Probably not true, but… action speaks louder than denials.

There are also other opportunities for P-Noy to clear the deck of the corruption of the past administration. Those who remember that Ate Glue project to propagate jatropha, the so called energy plant, will want to know what happened to the over a billion pesos of our money spent on it through the PNOC Alternative Fuels Corporation. Now that we may be in for a serious fuel crisis arising from the Middle East turmoil, it is a good time to know what happened other than the fund being spent.

Then there is also that case at the Development Bank of the Philippines that my colleague Lito Gagni of Business Mirror exposed the other week. I got a copy of the summary of the audit report and it reveals unhealthy banking practices that happened during the watch of the previous administration. Both the new DBP Board and the BSP are duty bound to act on the audit findings.

Here are a few paragraphs in the conclusion that should raise the hackles of people like P-Noy who want to walk on the tuwid na landas.

“The loan transaction violated all the basic rules of prudent lending and smacks of conflict of interest. Firstly… borrowers that cannot pass even the initial scrutiny of the Development Bank of the Philippines Credit Department but were lent P150.0M and P510M… Secondly, the utilization of the funds to be borrowed, which was to acquire (or play the stock) Philex with the intention to churn it in the short run and run away with millions, is not in the policy of a development bank.

“Clearly these companies were unworthy of any credit line or any concession for a loan to be approved. The transaction has no economic value but a Jackpot deal for few individuals. If the (bank official) at the time was in possession of information that will push the price upwards, then this may not be a simple case of unsafe and unsound banking practice, but a case of insider trading involving a government bank led by (a bank official) and in connivance with other private individuals (called the Raiders).

“… The rise in the price of Philex (the Raiders) gained substantial profits using and putting at risk the Development Bank. This could not have happened without the complicity of other officers. There were powerful influential factors that were at work to keep Philex price high or push it even higher…”

The details in the audit report sort of speak for themselves. We, the public, have been screwed royally. And as the grapevine puts it, all because some people lost a great deal on Lehman and were trying to recoup as much of their money back as they could.

Speaking of Lehman, I hear DBP also lost a bundle there. We should be told what really happened. The new board appointed by a President who wants us to fight corruption should not cover up for the old board. P-Noy should make sure that they don’t. Actually, if some people have any shame, a few suicides are in order.

PPP

I got this reaction to last Wednesday’s column from a Pinoy expat working in the financial sector in New York.

We should forgive Noynoy’s government for approaching PPP with misty eyes. Perhaps they thought, quite naively, that they found an easy way to build major infrastructure projects without spending a cent of taxpayer’s money. What government wouldn’t have wanted that?

But the harsh truth is that practically nowhere in the world has PPP been successfully implemented to the extent that it became a country’s key driver of economic development. That is an obvious red flag that Noynoy’s advisers should’ve spotted before they anchored the next six years of the Philippines’ development program on PPP.

If they carefully went through case studies of implemented and attempted PPP projects, they would’ve realized that PPP projects are for the most part unpopular with ordinary citizens who believe that they are entitled to these services as a right. We only have to look at the privatization of MWSS wherein, while so far successful, attempts by Maynilad and Manila Water to raise prices were met with protests from the general public.

It would be an uphill climb if the Philippines were to use a similar model for every major bridge, highway, viaduct, pedestrian walk and inter-island ferry terminal. Investors are well-aware of this pushback, which is why they hesitate, but there is no sign that Noynoy’s lieutenants are prepared to deal with it.

For example, have they even crafted a strategy of convincing “Mang Pandoy” as to why he should be willing to pay “as-you-go” fees for the use of these projects, and why he should tolerate price increases? If they can’t do that, than they should scale back their inflated ambitions and find some other way to make the Philippines prosperous.

EDSA spirit

The EDSA spirit gave rise to funny posts on the Internet. The first is a spoof survey that claims they found out 29 percent of Filipinos think ‘People Power’ is title of talent show that launched Kris Aquino into stardom.

The other one is from Sen. Bongbong Marcos who didn’t think he was being funny but he was. He said that if EDSA 1 didn’t happen we would be a Singapore now. Given that our economy was so screwed during the last few years of his father’s watch such that we defaulted on our foreign debt, maybe what Bongbong meant was we would have been SingaPOOR.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. He is also now on Twitter, @boochanco.