Legacy Group: The blame game has begun!

There is something terribly wrong at the Hanjin shipbuilding facility where there have been 19 work-related accidents. Now 20 other Hanjin workers were hurt in a shuttle bus accident. If you ask me, that’s just too many accidents happening in this practically brand new facility. Just for reference, I checked with our local shipyards in Balamban, the Tsuneishi (Cebu) Heavy Industries Inc. and the FBM Marine, that have been operating in Cebu for the last 10 years and they have had “zero” accident record! That’s in a 10-year operation!

While there was an accident in Balamban shipyards last year, this, however, was not due to shipyard operations. Rather the accident happened when a portion of a beam being constructed by the contractor failed and resulted in injuries. But like what we said, it had nothing to do with shipyard operations. I rarely agree with Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, but this time, he is right that Hanjin operations should immediately be stopped so that a safety evaluation should be done to find out why those accidents are happening.

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We already wrote here that the drug testing centers that have sprouted throughout the country for so many years have only proven not to have helped in our war against the menace of drug abuse. Since we exposed this last year in The Freeman, there has not been a single comment from the Land Transportation Office (LTO) as to why this is still a requirement for the renewal of driver’s license when drug users can easily “dupe” these drug testing centers by using someone else’s urine for the tests.

But what gets me is that, I have yet to see a report coming from these drug testing centers that gives out statistics on how many drivers tested positive when they came for the tests. What I do know is that, drug testing centers (just like the smoke emission centers) have become a “lucrative business” of favored friends of the powers-that-be.

But never mind if these moneymaking ventures are given to favored friends for as long as they serve a noble purpose, like fighting the cancer of drug abuse. But if such testing centers merely extract money from the public with no real purpose, then it should be scrapped! I hope President Arroyo will listen and act on our pleas.

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So those rumors last December turned out to be true that a high-government official “interceded” with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for and in behalf of the Legacy Group and the name of Speaker Prospero Nograles always surfaced in those rumors. Legacy Group owner Celso de los Angeles admitted as fact during the last Senate investigation that Speaker Nograles invested P18 million in his ill-fated company. With that much money stashed in the Legacy Group, I’d like to believe that Speaker Nograles would try to “save” the Legacy Group so he could at least get his investment back.

Now didn’t we say that whenever there’s smoke, there’s fire? Now the blaming game has started. Was it Mayor Celso de los Angeles who was reported to have blamed everyone, including biased reporting by the media, on why the Legacy Group collapsed? In fairness to the media, they only started making those reports on the Legacy Group when it collapsed. So why should Mr. De los Angeles blame the media for his own doing, huh? Perhaps Mr. De los Angeles ought to start looking at the mirror and blame himself for the mess, the pyramiding scam that he created and with which he conned investors like Speaker Nograles to plunk their money into his company.

Here in Cebu, we have always wondered how the salesmen of the Legacy Group would coax people to invest in a “double-your-money-scheme.” I’m sure that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) knew that this was happening, but took a nonchalant stance on this. Now senators are asking for the head of SEC chief Fe Barin for this brouhaha.

The BSP also blames the regional trial courts (RTCs) for blocking their examiners from acting on their findings about the failed rural banks under the Legacy Group. They can always pass on the blame, but the BSP cannot be blameless. As The Philippine STAR editorial pointed out last Wednesday, “As early as 2007, BSP officials said, the Legacy Group was already ‘severely undercapitalized.’ Timely action by the BSP and the Monetary Board would have saved depositors and policy plan holders.” But as we’ve been saying, the BSP officials were not transparent about this problem and now the poor depositors have lost their money.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, “Straight from the Sky,” every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.