Make-or-break meet on PNB sale

Today, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves will preside a make-or-break meeting between officials of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and Philippine National Bank and key officers of the Planters Against Plunder of the Sugar Industry (PAPSI) on the controverted bidding of PNB stocks.

Lawyer Danny Hagad of PASPI even offered a possible option — allow the sugar farmers to share in the payable loans and give them the chance to free up mortgaged properties.

This can be done by allowing the planters to take out the loans through a special purpose vehicle or a bond float.

The PNB today acts as the collection agent of the P3-billion loans of sugar farmers which the BSP had acquired through dacion en pago from the Republic Planters Bank.

Collections of PNB from the farmers are put in an escrow fund that is supposed to settle the BSP loan as soon as the fund hits P3 billion.

Sugar farmers under PAPSI claim that the buy-back deal between PNB and BSP is anomalous and disadvantageous.

They also flayed the reluctance of BSP and PNB officials to allow them to get a copy of the two memoranda of agreement entered into by the two banking institutions.

The Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations (Confed), who helped stave off the Friday sale, also came out with a proposed compromise formula. Reynaldo Bantug, Confed national president, said the BSP and PNB could agree to set aside the excess collections of PNB from the farmers’ bank loans as restitution to farmers who had been plundered by Nasutra and Philsucom as well as Republic Planters Bank during the Marcos years.

That, Bantug said, could implement the Sugar Restitution Law which, until now, remains only partially implemented. The PNB has reduced the astronomical interest from a high of 42 percent to 12 percent per annum in compliance with the Sugar Restitution Act. But the government has never implemented the law’s mandate to restitute the sugar farmers what had been plundered from them by the group headed by then former Ambassador Roberto Benedicto.

Negros-Panay chapter chairman Luis Tongoy said both the PNB and BSP should feel obligated to make use of whatever excess collections to implement the restitution mandate by ceding them to the sugar farmers.

Incidentally, one reason for the ballooning debt was the fact that the Supreme Court ordered the lower court in 1991 to proceed with the trial of the case of plunder filed by PAPSI against Benedicto, RPB, Nasutra and Philsucom upon its determination of a prima facie case of plunder. The planters were then reportedly deprived of millions of dollars in return from their sugar sold abroad by Benedicto and company.

Unfortunately, the court still has to conduct further hearings on the case.

Well, what seems to be the problem is that only one bank has signified its desire to bid for the PNB stocks of the government at the floor price of P45. The other one interested is PNB’s stockholder taipan Lucio Tan.

Rep. Monico Puentevella (Bacolod City) arranged the meeting with Teves. Rep. Ignacio Arroyo (fifth district) also said he will help PAPSI get a hearing on their claim.

Ombudsman to prosecute Treñas, Malabor

The Visayas Ombudsman has recommended that Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas be administratively and criminally charged for graft in connection with the anomalous multimillion-peso Iloilo City employees’ housing project.

Visayas Deputy Ombudsman Primo Miro claimed that the recommendation has been forwarded to Tanodbayan Simeon Marcelo.

Former mayor Mansueto Malabor and several other city officials have been included for possible prosecution, Miro added.

Actually, it was the Sangguniang Panglungsod’s committee on good government that referred the matter to the Ombudsman-Visayas.

Treñas quipped that "my conscience is clear" after having been informed that he was included in the recommendation.

Actually, it seems that Treñas suspended paying the contractor of the housing project, Ace Builders and Enterprise (ABE), after learning about the irregularities in the construction of the housing units which were found to be substandard.

He later instructed city legal officer Edgardo Gil to negotiate with ABE so that work on the housing units could resume.

So far, Gil has not submitted any report regarding any headway in the negotiations.

The housing project is being financed by the city government through a loan.

Well, for the moment, Ilonggos can only wait for the outcome of Marcelo’s review of the Visayas Ombudsman’s resolutions.

CPU centennial bash

The Central Philippine University has been celebrating its centennial since last week. It was a major celebration, but somehow the political climate tended to subsume it.

But the centenarians as well as the Iloilo and Panay alumni were not deterred from pushing through with their tumultuous and grand celebration of the university and its role in the history of Western Visayas.

As usual, the highlight of the affair was the presentation of awards at the CPU Educational Media Center last Saturday.

A total of 115 alumni in the Philippines and abroad were presented awards in five dozen fields.

Among the prominent awardees were former Land Reform Secretary Rene Villa, Ambassador Enrique Zaldivar, retired Gen. Raymundo Jarque, and Iloilo fourth district Rep. Ferjenil Biron.

The 2005 awardees also included Fernando Arendian, Dr. Eby Banas, Atty. Lily Biton, Edilberto Cabalafin, Denilia Dinero Collado, Dr. Genaro Diesto Jr., Dr. Generoso Duremdes and Dr. Janelle Duremdes.

Panay News publisher/editor Danny Fajardo stood out among the awardees. The others were Abrico Falco, Dr. Myrna de la Cuentecha, lawyer Antonio Lorca, Engr. Romeo Magdaluyo, Brig. Gen. Eprodito Magno (military chaplain service), Gen. Elvigia Ruiz-Mendoza (nursing and military service), Antique Gov. Salvacion Zaldivar-Perez, Dr. Gideon Regalado, Perlita Rebanal, Carmen Pama-Santos, Lorna Duero Schmidt, Ana Catedrilla-Seisa, Mauro Somodio, and Horacio Saunsing Jr.

The ongoing celebration of the CPU centennial was ushered in by a concert of tenor Otoniel Gonzaga, accompanied by pianist Marie Ann Espina.