Cheng, who had been a "no show" at a previous Congressional hearing, finally appeared to testify before the Senate investigative committee headed by Sen. Joker Arroyo.
In his testimony to the astonished solons, Mr. Cheng, who is chairman of the Philippine International Air Terminals Co., Inc. (PIATCO), admitted that a guy named Alfonso S. Liongson had been hired by the firm for $200,000 per month. Liongson was further paid an additional $200,000 as "mobilization fee and downpayment". It was disclosed, in addition, that his fee had been going into a Hong Kong bank.
I’m glad that, under oath, Chairman Cheng (who was "President" of PIATCO when he gave that fantastic contract to Liongson in June 2001) has confirmed what this writer has been saying in this column for months. I not only identified this mysterious Mr. Liongson who really exists and is not fictitious, but I published his entire bio-data, the general idea of where he lived (for the sake of his privacy I didn’t include his specific address, but I had it – and checked it out), and the location of his business address in Parañaque (near the airport, mind you).
Despite all this information, there was – at the time – no government investigation into the interesting Liongson (who hails from Bacolor, Pampanga and graduated from the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila). I did question how somebody with a B.S. in Agriculture and work experience only as a lowly assistant vice president of a pharmaceutical firm (Unilab) could be such an expert in airport terminal and management affairs that he rated the unbelievable monthly remuneration of $200,000 monthly.
Where is this lucky gentleman now? The Senate, reports published in four daily newspapers yesterday said, had looked for him at his office and residential addresses and could not find him. Why? Did Liongson skip? Weeks ago, we heard the rumor that he had fled to the United States.
Perhaps, like that scruffy Abu Sayyaf renegade, Abu Sabaya, he’ll suddenly show up. We fervently hope so. This gentleman Alfonso S. Liongson surely has much to tell – the Senate, the waffling Justice Secretary Nani Perez (who’s blowing hot and cold on the PIATCO imbroglio), and the general public.
In the Manila Standard, the story of the same Cheng Yong testimony was headlined: PIATCO PR Man Got P10 M a month.
Sus, if that P10 million per month was supposed to influence people in favor of the PIATCO Terminal 3 deal, who got the grease? Surely, Liongson didn’t pocket it for himself – at least not all.
Even if Liongson is gone, is there payola galore still being handed out? Poor Gloria Tan Climaco, I say again. She’s getting it in the neck from certain nasty commentators in the media. And all she did was do the job assigned to her by President Macapagal-Arroyo; namely, to investigate the PIATCO deal, discover what’s wrong with it, and advise the President what to do.
What’s this baloney about Climaco wanting to grab the contract and give the deal to one of her "cronies"? Everybody who reads that item knows that the accusation is pure bullshit. With the eyes of the nation already focused on that stalled – I repeat, stalled – airport project, who could succeed in such hanky-panky as snatching the already smelly contract away from PIATCO and awarding it to somebody else "more favored"?
How much did they spend already? $200 million? $300 million? $400 million? What did the "wonderful" Chengs, Papa Yong and son Jeffrey, spend, in contrast, out of their own pockets? $16 million? $20 million? $50 million? Let’s have the figures revealed and published – down to every last peso or dollar – so the public will know WHO BUILT THAT GODDAM AIRPORT TERMINAL.
What we’ve been getting is an excess of sanctimonious flag-waving, hallelujahs, and "damn them dirty foreigners" propaganda, and double-damn the vicious government for trying to seize the Terminal 3 project "Hitler-style".
I suggest to one and all that they examine the actual PIATCO contract for themselves, instead of pontificating out of ignorance or arrogance. The PIATCO "stockholders" have been fulsomely quoted as telling the government to "lay off", and let them settle things among themselves. How can the government lay off? Under the contract, if the PIATCO wiseguys default or the project breaks down, it will be the government who not only pays for everything (meaning – you and I, long-oppressed taxpayers), will foot the bill that remunerates those PIATCO wiseguys for everything. It’s for them an I-win, You-lose situation all the way.
As our newspaper’s reporter Efren Danao narrated: Cheng said Liongson was hired to counter the attacks on the PIATCO contract by the MIA-NAIA Association of Service Operators…
Malaya also wrote: "Cheng said PIATCO was constrained to hire Liongson because the company was getting too much bad publicity from the offensive launched by MASO… He (Liongson) told me he has many friends in the media and he could do his job. We believed that he could help as a crisis public relations man (Cheng said to the Senate)."
I had previously disclosed months ago in this corner, that on July 2, 2001, this Liongson wrote Mr. Cheng Yong a memorandum (copy in my hand, with his signature), stating that we have already achieved two (2) of the most important milestone, under our Consulting Agreement dated 22 June, 2001, for which the performance of the Services actually commenced on 1 June, 2001.
"On 27 June, 2001, Liongson asserted, the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP), through the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), and PIATCO signed and executed the Third Supplement to the Amended and Restated Concession Agreement for the NAIA Terminal 3 Project."
Attached to the letter was a bill for $1 million. Sanamagan! In today’s pesos, that comes to about P52 million – for just that "bill" (alone). And to think that Liongson wasn’t either Spiderman or "Diesel."
Haven’t you noticed? The services for which he was billing PIATCO – in that July 8. 2001 letter – were not for PR work done with the media but for "influencing" government officials into signing agreements.
The letter even revealed Liongson’s Hong Kong bank account. It advised Cheng: Kindly remit the full amount to HSBC (Bank Code 004) Account Number 485-6-605763).
C’mon. There obviously was a great deal of money being passed around to win "friends" for PIATCO. With P17 billion in prospective "earnings" to be lost or gained in the current fracas, don’t tell me that well of generosity has suddenly dried up.
Taking a brief recess from daily nagging the police and military to go gung ho after criminal syndicates like kidnap gangs, hijackers, drug lords, etc., the Chief Executive shot off to Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, on Thursday, August 29) to personally commiserate with thousands of wretched Filipino deportees from Sabah and Malaysia arriving there.
Last Thursday (Sept. 5), just a week later, she was again in Mindanao, this time to inaugurate a P300-million fiberglass fishing boat-making factory in Barangay Tambler, General Santos City. She also keynoted the 4th National Tuna Congress. (Seven of the country’s nine tuna canning factories are situated in GenSan). We Ilocanos, of course, grew up on canned sardines and tinned carne norte, – i.e., corned beef. And let’s not forget: saluyot and bagoong make the Ilocano Nation strong. But hurrah for the tuna industry! It earns the country mucho dinero, and keeps 200,000 employees in groceries.
GMA also zipped off to Lakewood, Zamboanga del Sur, to guest at the Megayon Festival, addressing the folk there in fluent Cebuano. (Did you know? she had lived for three years in Iligan City).
The President ended up in Mount Diwalwal – which we call our "Mountain of Gold" – in Monkayo, Compostela Valley.
I don’t know whether the whirlwind visit of the President was able to resolve the bloody quarrels there between "small miners", big miners, and the various homicidal syndicates fighting it out for control of the gold in that greed-wracked area. There’s something about gold that drives men (and women) mad.
The Diwalwal, Mount Diwata, killings and feuds have been going on for decades – and perhaps 70 percent of the gold "mined" there is smuggled out, sans tax payment or without being surrendered to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas – but we’ve written this exposé ad nauseam over the past 12 years to no avail. The government has accomplished nothing – nada, nunca, walang-wala – in bringing "peace," and law and order, to Diwalwal. Certain people, of course, got rich.
In the meantime, dangerous chemicals from placer and mining operations, running down the slope to the rivers and creeks, have poisoned the local population below.
If GMA can resolve the Diwalwal mess during her term, she’ll have truly accomplished something! Here we are, a poor nation, sitting on a Mountain of Gold, but the gold is being stolen and smuggled to other countries. Right under our very nose.