P-Noy to rise or fall on presidential pork

ACID TEST: President Noynoy Aquino appears to have decided to rise or fall on the pork barrel issue  but the people, if surveys are to be believed, have just cautioned him with a sharp drop in his net trust rating.

Not content with defending (but realigning) congressional pork, President Aquino intends to retain the Disbursement Acceleration Program fund that he dispenses much like pork, and is also asking his Congress allies to lift the restriction on his use of Malampaya gas funds to energy-related projects.

He wants the Malampaya billions available to him off-budget, with him having the sole discretion to use the money just like the pile of money being shoveled to him in the hundreds of millions by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

His insistence on keeping a bulging pork barrel leaves the impression that the lame duck President feels politically naked or powerless without discretionary lump sums at his disposal.

But as if in warning, the Sept. 20-23 nationwide survey of the Social Weather Stations -- with the pork barrel and other issues running in the background — showed the President’s trust rating dropping by 15 points from 64 to 49 percent.

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DRILON SCARED?: Now we know why Senate President Franklin Drilon is afraid to invite businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles, a vital witness, to testify on the plunder of congressional and other pork barrel funds.

Sandra Cam, president of the Whistleblowers Association of the Philippines, detailed the other day the close association dating back to 2005 of Drilon and Napoles, the star in the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

Delaying a showdown, Drilon postponed yesterday to Oct. 16 a caucus of senators on his refusal to sign the invitation for Napoles to testify before the Blue Ribbon committee.

Cam said: “Drilon did not want the public to know that contrary to his claims, he and Napoles knew each other as early as 2005. He also did not want the public to know that Napoles knew the President, the Executive Secretary and other officials in Malacañang.

“Drilon and Napoles were the patrons of the biggest jueteng bagman, an untouchable operator in the Arroyo administration who managed to cross over to the Aquino clique and was even made a provincial party whip of the Liberal Party.”

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AN EMBARRASSMENT: On judicial reforms brought to the fore by the pork issue, one embarrassing area has been the Court of Appeals, which critics say has been too trigger-happy in issuing Temporary Restraining Orders that sometimes delay cases.

Just recently, the CA issued a TRO against a decision of a Makati court to return P237 million to a local investment company after it was learned that the loan was already fully paid abroad.

Last July, we wrote here about the Department of Justice taking over the preliminary investigation of a criminal case filed with the Makati prosecutor by a financial firm versus officials of a multinational bank. The DoJ action delayed the case since the prosecutor was then poised to render a decision.

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PERJURY: Finally last Sept. 16, the DoJ recommended the filing of criminal perjury charges against Kathrina Sebastian of the Standard Chartered Bank as petitioned by the complainant Philippine Investment Two Inc. (PI II).

The DoJ saw perjury in SCB’s submissions to the Makati Regional Trial Court that is the rehabilitation court for PI II, the former local unit of the defunct Lehman Brothers. The firm was put under rehabilitation when Lehman declared bankruptcy after the 2007 financial crisis.

The DOJ said SCB “intentionally” concealed that it received more than $90 million in collateral from Lehman, on a P819-million loan it made to PI II in 2007. This caused huge losses for PI II and its creditors such as the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co.

What SCB should have done was disclose the collateral, liquidate it, and return the excess proceeds to PI II for the other creditors’ claims. But SCB kept this secret.

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COLLECTING TWICE: The SCB also did not disclose that the P819-million loan had been extinguished as part of a $26-million settlement between SCB and Lehman Brothers as approved by the bankruptcy court in New York.

In January, SCB sold the $90 million in high-grade bonds given it as collateral, and gave $64 million in change back to Lehman. Metrobank and PI II filed action to prevent SCB from collecting twice for the same loan.

The SCB denied at first there was the $90-million collateral, and then claimed the bonds were not enough to cover the PI II loans.

The fact that it returned $64 million to Lehman makes this claim suspicious. And it looks bad that SCB kept secret its deal with Lehman in New York.

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BLINDSIDED: Before the secret dealings of SCB were discovered, Metrobank had an exposure in PI II of over P400 million, and yet it still let SCB be paid P237 million by PI II.

Last Aug. 30, the Makati RTC rehab court ordered SCB to return the P233.6 million that it already got from PI II. The judge also removed SCB’s standing as a creditor under PI II’s rehab plan.

The court held a hearing on Sept. 10 to work out the decision’s implementation, where it asked the parties to work out an amicable settlement.

The parties committed to meet later in the week, only for the court to be blindsided by a TRO issued Sept. 13 against its ruling by a division of the CA in a process that took less than two days and without any hearing or comments solicited.

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