Another ZTE-type scam at DOTC?

The issue in today’s meeting of the Judicial and Bar Council is plain. It is not so much about Rep. Matias Defensor’s dubious proposition than the very life of the JBC.

Defensor, Gloria Arroyo’s lapdog, is out to subvert the Constitution for her. He wants the JBC to nominate a Chief Justice-in-waiting well before sitting Reynato Puno retires May 17. If Arroyo appoints their nominee this early, he says, she laudably would avert an unprecedented vacancy of the Judiciary’s top and the State’s fifth-highest post.

Phooey. Arroyo (using Defensor) only aims to control the Court well after she steps down June 30. This is so she (he too) can retain some degree of legal immunity via a coddling last-minute Chief Justice. Truly, Arroyo’s propensity to mangle institutions to suit personal interest knows no limits.

The plot flouts the Constitution. Article VIII, Section 4 states that the President shall fill up any Court vacancy within 90 days. Simultaneously Article VII, Section 15 bars the President from making any appointments within the last two months of the term, except temporary crucial ones in the Executive. Defensor’s (Arroyo’s) intention is incompatible.

The choice is thus clear. It does not matter if the Chief Justiceship is empty for 45 days. The next President will still have an ample 45 days to select the successor. The departing President should not be allowed to ruin the system any further.

The JBC knows what’s right. Defensor must be let to march alone to perdition. The other members — Puno, Sen. Francis Escudero, Sec. Agnes Devanadera, Regino Hermosisima, J. Conrado Castro, Amado Dimayuga, and Aurora Lagman — can remain independent, for the country’s sake.

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Stink from the ZTE scam has yet to blow away. But the Department of Transportation and Communications is to start another irregular project with a Chinese state company. And insiders grumble that the railway deal smacks of all the flaws of the aborted telecom plan: overpriced, opaque and onerous.

China Shanghai (Group) Corp. is to extend the Light Railway Transit-1 by 11.7 kilometers, Baclaran to Bacoor, for an astounding $1.78 billion. As in the ZTE scam, there was no public bidding, only quiet negotiations with DOTC and lobbying at the National Economic and Development Authority. Again, China Export-Import Bank is to provide supposedly “concessional loans,” but actually at tight repayment terms. No less than DOTC Undersecretary Guilling Mamondiong has announced favoring the Chinese option over a cheaper proposal by a Filipino.

Scant info releases from DOTC slyly highlight only the basics: The 11.7-kilometer extension will augment 15 existing kilometers of LRT-1, Baclaran to Monumento. Most of the new works, 10.5 kilometers, will be elevated. Two stations are to be built, and 64 train coaches to be added in 2020, plus eight more in 2030. The project supposedly will increase daily ridership to 800,000 once finished by the Group subsidiary, called Foreign Economic and Technological Cooperation (SFECO).

But the hidden facts are undeniable: The original project cost by LRT-1 management was only $683 million, or P32.1 billion at an exchange rate of P47:$1. Earlier Ecorail Transport Services Inc. — a member of the group of companies led by Reghis Romero II — had proposed to undertake the work via a joint venture scheme. The price ballooned more than two-and-a-half times — to $1.78 billion (P83.66 billion) — when the Chinese firm came in. This means an average cost of $152 million (P7.15 billion) per kilometer. The deal is being rushed before the Arroyo admin steps down June 30. SFECO is to operate the extension for 40 years and even share in revenues coming from the existing lines. Meanwhile, the Filipino public, including those who do not ride LRT-1, will be saddled with loan repayment to China EximBank for 25 years.

The LRT deal follows the ZTE pattern, as exposed by whistleblowers who witnessed different stages of the DOTC’s national broadband network plan. Engineer Dante Madriaga testified at the Senate that the original cost was only $62 million-$78 million, based on changing specifications in 2006. This rose to $132 million when ZTE managers and Filipino lobbyists tacked on kickbacks. Engineer Jun Lozada swore that the NBN cost soared further to $168 million then to $262 million in early 2007 due to the proponents’ immoderate greed. When businessman Joey de Venecia offered a much lower price via build-operate-transfer, the other side tried to bribe him off with $10 million. He refused and exposed the scheme. Still, Gloria Arroyo flew to China in April 2007 to sign the deal, at $329 million, a month before Election Day.

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Philippine news paperdom lost last week its oldest columnist, Ariel Bocobo. A reporter and editor, then a presidential appointee and diplomat in younger days, Ariel wrote analysis and opinion till he was 82 four years ago. He was also an avid sportsman (the country’s first amateur pelotari), gamesman (his poker prowess was legendary), and learner (bookstores were his favorite hangouts). Upon “retirement” in 2005 he set about writing his memoirs, but sadly never got to finish it. He lost his wife Nenita Caballero (my aunt) in 2001. Now he has gone on to meet his Maker whom he so loved and served, and left behind sons Norman, Jorge III, and Leslie.

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 “I am happy with my limited talents because it demands that I work with others and to surrender my limits to God who knows no limits.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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