Difficult to justify; mayor apologizes

“Integrity, transparency and the fight against corruption have to be part of the culture. They have to be taught as fundamental values.”

—Angel Gurria 

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

EVEN if Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio will hire the best accountants and spin masters in the Philippines to help her wiggle out from her present predicament, the P125 million representing the “confidential funds” her office had “spent” for only 11 days, according to the Commission on Audit (COA), is hard to justify.

No mathematician, auditor and accounting expert can camouflage and smokescreen a suspected blatant misappropriation of public funds in such a lousy and outrageous manner.    

She is expected—and will be forced—to issue alibis and justifications whether she likes it or don’t, for she cannot ignore the growing and hostile demands from various sectors and irate taxpayers for her to explain how the money was used in such uncanny fashion and hurtle.

She has to liquidate it by all means. Transparency and accountability can’t be shrugged off especially if it involves millions of pesos in public funds.

As concurrently the secretary of education, she has to face the issue squarely and refrain from hiding behind the blouses of her undersecretaries. 

 

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Mrs. Duterte-Carpio can’t just brush aside the burning issue and divert the people’s attention by resorting to name-calling and lambasting lawmakers like Sen. Riza Hontiveros and Rep. France Castro who demanded for her accountability.

That’s a PR disaster nonpareil. It’s a fatal way of handling a very difficult and embarrassing crisis in connection with the “confidential funds.”

By being sardonic amid this humiliating situation, she will only further sink her own body in the quicksand.

Where’s the humility, couth, and professionalism? 

Doesn’t she have advisers and consultants for crisis management? Better still, does she listen to them?

Did the hard-hitting ex-president fret about his daughter’s scandalous misadventure?

He should have at least done something as a father and a fellow public servant to stop her on her tracks when it became known all over the country that the daughter appeared to have mishandled her office’s “confidential funds.”    

Instead of being belligerent and angry, Vice President Duterte-Carpio should have spoken meekly and calmly. She can’t win this gory battle in the bar of public opinion. 

When you are accused of abusing and messing around with the people’s money, you’ll be rebuked and loathed even if your popularity is skyrocketing. 

Taxpayers can tolerate incompetence in public service, but not a whiff of graft and corruption and a potential plunder.

 

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In a rare act by a local chief executive, Iloilo City Mayor Geronimo “Jerry” Treñas has apologized for the conduct of several city hall contractual employees and a permanent employee implicated in a case of theft recently.

“One regular employee and 5 casual employees of the city government under the City Engineers Office have been reported to have been involved in the theft of active main copper wires of the Pldt,” the mayor wrote in his Facebook account. 

“They are given the option of resigning from their employment immediately or face criminal and administrative cases. In behalf of the city government, I apologize for these employees. We will always endeavor to prove that they are the exceptions rather than the rule in the city government.”

 

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IT IS STILL A TECHNICAL DEPORTATION, GENERAL. Former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. has insisted he was not deported by the Canadian immigration authorities who reportedly gave him plenty of trouble upon his arrival at the Langley Airport in Canada recently.

Report said he was subjected to intense questioning about the drug war of former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Because he couldn’t stand the heat in the kitchen, the retired general claimed he opted to take a flight back to the Philippines, as reported in the Philippine Star, to avoid further “harassment” by immigration authorities.

The Canadian immigration authorities were reportedly interested to know the details about the Duterte drug war, and even asked Azurin about incumbent senators allied with the previous administration.

By taking a flight back to his airport of origin after a nightmarish experience in the Canadian immigration, it’s still a technical deportation. For whatever reason, we will never know unless the Canadian authorities will tell us.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

Drilon misses ‘confidential fund queen’ by skin of teeth

“People say I'm extravagant because I want to be surrounded by beauty. But tell me, who wants to be surrounded by garbage?”

—Imelda Marcos

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

VICE President Sara Duterte-Carpio probably thinks the taxpayers money grows on trees, and it is in the behest of high-ranking public officials like her who want to custody a big chunk of it “confidentially.”

She has to be stopped. She has to be told what is moral and immoral about using the hard-earned money in the form of taxes paid by the hoi polloi.

It’s not even a question anymore whether it is legal; it’s already a question about conscience and the values of our highest elected officials.

And the legislators should put a brake on her unrestrained rampage if President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has become a sitting duck on this brouhaha and too ashamed and weak to tell her, “Hey, that’s enough. The whole nation is watching.”

Only the retirement of former senator Franklin “Frank” Drilon had separated him from doing a heroic rule of saving the taxpayers money from being siphoned off to the new animal called “confidential and intelligence fund” or CIF.

 

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Like many other fearless and outspoken sentinels of taxpayers money in the legislative body, former senator Franklin “Frank” Drilon missed the chance to confront and educate Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio, who is fast becoming known as the Philippine Government’s “confidential fund queen.”

“Only those agencies involved in gathering intelligence should be given confidential and intelligence funds. That should be the clear standard,” Drilon told ANC’s Headstart on September 7.

“Agencies like DepEd, DOH, DENR, etc. should draw information from intelligence gathering agencies,” said Drilon, citing the armed forces, the Philippine National Police, NBI, among others.

Drilon’s proposal comes in the wake of growing concerns surrounding the allocation and utilization of CIFs, such as to the DepEd which is allocated P150 million under the proposed 2024 spending outlay.

Drilon had earlier questioned the decision of the Office of the President to transfer P221.42 million to the OVP, P125 million of which was classified as confidential funds, even though there was no provision for it in the 2022 budget of the OVP.

 

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The Ilonggo leader, who is a former senate president, advised the Senate to convene more regularly the oversight committee on the use of confidential and intelligence funds to review the utilization of the multi-billion funds.

The late former senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel, Joker Arroyo are no longer around. Unflinching and brilliant former senators Rene Saguisag and Francisco “Kit” Tatad, to name only a few, are already out of power.

Because these illustrious and outstanding anti-graft behemoths weren’t anymore around, Mrs. Duterte-Carpio, who concurrently sits as Department of Education (DepEd) secretary, was able to strike fear in the hearts of some wet-behind-the-ears and spineless senators and representatives who looked helpless as the second highest elected official of the land succeeded to get anther P500 million in “confidential and intelligence fund” or CIF for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) on top of the P221.42 million the OVP amassed in 2022.

And Mrs. Duterte-Carpio wants to run berserk with another hundreds of millions of pesos in CIF for the DepEd.

 

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In her song, This Masquerade, the late diva and superstar in the 70’s, Karen Carpenter, asked:

Are we really happy with this lonely game we play?

Looking for the right words to say

Searching but not finding understanding anyway

We're lost in this masquerade

And in their song, Teach Your Children Well, the fabulous Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, averred:

You, who are on the road

Must have a code you try to live by

And so become yourself

Because the past is just a goodbye

Teach your children well

Their father's hell did slowly go by

Feed them on your dreams

The one they pick's the one you'll know by

Mrs. Vice President, hear the melodies.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)

 

 

 

Will Sara Duterte back Joe III vs Jerry?

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” --Groucho Marx

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- If we stretch our imaginations, the only way for Iloilo City Mayor Jose “Joe III” Espinosa III to face Rep. Jerry Treñas for mayor in the 2019 elections is for Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP) founder, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, to endorse his candidacy and for House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez’s PDP-Laban to officially back acolyte Treñas.
HNP is currently slowly inching its way to forge a tie-up with various satellite political parties first in Mindanao, and now in the Visayas, in a hope to grow and expand in time for the next congressional elections.
PDP-Laban, of course, is not happy about the new kid in town and is, in fact, getting increasingly pissed off and insecure especially that it is being spearheaded by the most powerful and influential daughter in the Philippines today, who is rumored to be the next candidate for president.

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HNP and PDP-Laban are still currently “distinct and separate” from one another in as far as legitimacy and recognition by the Comelec are concerned, although they both can sleep in the same presidential bedroom together albeit in two separate beds.
Still on infant stage, HNP is obscured by its regional-level status, while PDP-Laban is a behemoth party with strongholds and incumbent elected officials all over the archipelago.
It’s a common knowledge that Inday Sara and Alvarez are not on speaking terms after the latter had branded Inday Sara’s group as “the new opposition.”
Joe III and Treñas are both PDP-Laban stalwarts and have also allegedly quarreled (of course we didn’t believe this).
The most likely scenario in the event the Joe III-Treñas alleged spat was authentic and they are hellbent to dispute the top city hall post in 2019, is for HNP and PDP-Laban to pick between the two “magbilas” (their wives are sisters).
Inday Sara might go for the “underdog” and fellow incumbent local chief executive, while Alvarez might choose a colleague in congress he thinks will be a “sure winner” for mayor.
This is, of course, a wishful thinking and, as we mentioned earlier, can only be possible if we stretch our curious imaginations.

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We still strongly believe that Mayor Joe III and Rep. Treñas will swap positions and are only trying to confuse their rivals who still continue to read between the lines and mutely observe the Joe III-Treñas “civil war” from afar.
By keeping the cards closer to their sleeves, Joe III and Treñas increase the chance for their opponents to face a grim prospect of kicking off their campaign offensive against a windmill like Sancho Panza in Don Quixote.
In fact, Joe III confirmed to city hall reporters recently that he would be running for an elective post in 2019.
The fact that he did not reveal which position he intends to aspire for in 2019 is a clear indication that he (or they) really plans to further draw a jigsaw puzzle in the minds of his (or their) political rivals.