BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
5/7-8/2011
The one economic assumption this government believes is for as long as it does not indulge in corruption, it enjoys the high moral ground to accuse others of corruption. The problem however is that it reflects more of this administration’s shortsightedness. President Benigno Aquino III has failed to reckon that should his government fail to act on the massive corruption committed by the previous administration, it automatically it makes his own government equally notorious.
We have to restate this because there is nothing that could mollify the public from arriving at that conclusion. Failure to investigate and prosecute those responsible is to acquiesce into the criminal acts committed by its predecessor. We are referring to the loan agreement entered into by the Lung Center of the Philippines with the Land Bank of the Philippines.
A report submitted by Elizabeth M. Savella, the audit team leader of the Commission on Audit dated March 18, 2011 to Angeline A. Rojas, chief of the Accounting and Budget Division of the LCP, of which copy was furnished the current Executive Director, Dr. Jose Luis J. Danguilan, found some interesting items that could add to the long list of corruption attributed to its erstwhile head, Dr. Juanito A. Rubio, the enterprising doctor turned “tianggero”. Maybe Doctor Rubio is ingenious in many ways, but overstepped in exercising his powers unmindful that in the event the hospital fails to pay, it could be levied and sold by the lender Bank, a process that would make a mockery of the power of Congress to privatize or dispose by sale government corporations and their assets.
The unnumbered and undated Board Resolution states that “in the November 29, 2006 meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Specialty Hospital authorized Dr. Juanito A. Rubio, Medical Director of the LCP to source out, transact, approve funding source from banks for the acquisition of LCP radiotherapy equipment...” Note that the meeting happened not on the date the Resolution was signed. Rather, from November 29, 2006 or the date the Board allegedly met up to that period when the Loan Agreement was formalized on September 25 and December 23, 2009, respectively, it practically gave Dr. Rubio a carta blanche authority as to when he would wish to secure the vote of the ex officio chairman. Interestingly Dr. Esperanza Cabral was made to appear to have allegedly signed the Resolution as ex officio chairwoman sometime in November 2006, a position reserved to the Secretary of Health, when at that time, she has yet to be appointed Secretary.
To make matters worse, the loan agreement was finalized more than three years after the Board allegedly approved said Resolution as shown by the date it was signed separately on September 25, 2009 by Lolita T. Silva, the Assistant Vice President/Head of the Public Sector Department and by Doctor Rubio signing it on December 23, 2009. The dubiousness of the document was highlighted by the fact that it was acknowledged by two lawyers on separate dates in two separate acknowledgements, with one notarizing Silva’s version in Manila, while the lawyer for Rubio notarizing his version in Quezon City, considering that the loan agreement is not a unilateral contract. With that, one could logically deduce that the acknowledgment was prepared ahead of the loan agreement.
The report also stated that the Purchase Order dated April 22, 2009 came ahead of the Notice of Loan Approval dated August 19, 2009. Stated differently, Doctor Rubio made a purchase order even before the loan could be approved. Of course, there were other items considered as highly irregular as when it noted that the procurement of the radiotherapy equipment was bidded for the 3rd time with Golden Precision Medical Equipment, Inc. (GPMEI), and in that instance was awarded the contract. Allegedly, on the 2nd bidding, the procurement failed to push through although the bidding was already on the stage of post qualifying the selected bidder.
Besides, there were no pertinent documents that were attached to the voucher. The minutes of the pre-bid conference that allegedly transpired on February 24, 2009 stated there was an approved budget of P170 million for the purchase of said equipment. The amount was reiterated in the minutes for the opening of bids dated March 9, 2009. Both documents were prepared by Consolacion M. Balderosa, head of the Bids and Awards Committee Secretariat and by Dr. Joseph Leonardo Obusan, LCP-BAC Chairman. That same day the BAC approved Resolution No. 0004-2009 declaring GPMEI the winner although no other company participated in the bidding.
Discrepancies further shrouded the bidding because on March 13, 2009, Dr. Rubio notified GPMEI of the award stating therein the price of P160,192,270.00 which was lower than the winning bid of P170 million. Despite that, the Loan Agreement which was signed months later, specifically on September 25 and December 23, 2009, still appropriated P200 million reiterating the amount stated in the undated and unnumbered Board Resolution.
Most damaging was that the loan agreement was carried out without securing the prior approval of the President and with the concurrence of the Monetary Board of the BSP as provided in Section 15 of the General Appropriations Act. The reason is to prevent government agencies, like hospitals, from being privatized by levy should the borrower incur a default with the architects behind the scheme going scot-free. Clearly, the action taken by Dr. Rubio was ultra vires or an act beyond the scope of his authority.
Specifically, National Housing Authority Resolution No. 209 dated May 29, 1979 ratifying the Deed of Donation of the 12 hectare property states that in the event of dissolution of the donee-LCP, the parcel of land shall automatically revert back to the donor-NHA. This explains why P.D. No. 1823 did not authorize the administrators of LCP to mortgage said property even for the avowed purpose of purchasing hospital equipment. For that President Marcos only extended to it the privilege of tax exemption, to accept assistance from government agencies, and to receive subsidy and donations.
Given this, the Aquino administration can make a fresh start by filing charges of plunder, and graft and corruption against Dr. Rubio and those who affixed their signature in that questionable Board Resolution and Loan Agreement. Prosecuting them would do justice to poor Filipino patients who could only rely on the services of government hospitals for help.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Kadaffi's son and grandchildren
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/6/2011
Barack Obama timed the Osama bin Laden action-drama, tagged by the Inquirer as an “Epic raid like spy thriller,” for several major dilemmas the US is facing today. First is the massive deleterious impact of the US-Nato bombing of a residential area that killed Moammar Kadaffi’s second youngest son Saif al-Arab and his three pre-teen grandsons. Second is Obama’s dwindling poll numbers while entering an election year. Third is the Establishment’s worry that on the 10th year since 9/11 — after the destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) Twin Towers, including Building 7, with close to 3,000 victims — up to 84 percent of Americans, based on a 2006 New York Times/CBS News poll, reject the official US government story while over 80 percent support actor Charlie Sheen’s view that 9/11 was an “inside job” by high government officials.
This Obama stunt is the latest in a long history of hoaxes in aid of warmongering, going back to the fake Sinking of the Maine to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, to Bush’s 9/11 as well as Saddam’s WMD.
One of Kadaffi’s sons, Saif al-Arab, was wounded together with younger brother Khamis, back in the 1986 bombings (ordered by Ronald Reagan) that killed their 15-month-old adopted sister, but was not so fortunate this time in this second act of US barbarism against the Kadadfis.
I know the massive emotional impact these murders of innocents must have had on the entire Arab world since I, not even an Arab, felt the great injustice like a sword through my own heart. If I were in Libya, I would take up arms against the invaders too. I can see how the incident will fire up all Arab peoples, even in the puppet Arab countries, as well as other nations against this blatant Western aggression. Hence, Obama staged this “epic raid like spy thriller” to divert attention from the mourning for Kadaffi’s kin and their burial on land (which Muslim tradition requires, as against a burial-at-sea which the cowardly lying Americans did for the alleged Osama corpse).
I empathize with Kadaffi, as a father and grandfather, for the sacrifices made for his children (who represent the hope of the nation) and, more importantly, for his continued struggle against the real tyrants of this world. As a Filipino, I am ashamed at the way local mainstream media have groveled at the feet of US and Nato propaganda, re-issuing Western media lies for domestic Filipino consumption.
All told, they are merely part of the global warmongering and oppression, of the campaign of dehumanization against emerging nations such as Libya, the Philippines, and the rest of the Third World. Either that or they are just stupid — stupid to believe that the 9/11 WTC atrocities could have been planned and executed by pre-modern mujaheddins hiding in the most backward areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and stupid for refusing to read the genuine American conscience, such as the 700 scientists, architects, and engineers for “9/11 Truth,” who say the entire WTC collapse was a “controlled demolition.”
Fortunately for us all, Obama’s “epic spy thriller” script didn’t stay intact long enough to convince many. As soon as the tale hit the media, it began to unravel. Initially, the US said bin Laden fought back and used his wife as a human shield. That story quickly changed when other officials denied it. Then, as Bin Laden’s face, battered and smashed by bullets, appeared on the Internet, this was later proven by skeptics as a manipulation of two of his old photos.
Chinese media, which had reporters on the ground but were kept a distance away, initially reported that it was Pakistani troops that raided the alleged Bin Laden “mansion” but later retracted this. The “mansion” being reported by Western media turns out to be an ordinary three-story building typical of the community of many retired Pakistani military and civil service residents there. But the real fly in the ointment was the “burial-at-sea” which puts the Bin Laden body beyond verification.
The evidence of the lie is there for all to see. We culled the following from the best compilation of materials on the subject, prisonplanet.com: (a) photographs acquired by Reuters and taken about an hour after the US assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons; (b) “Not a single bullet was fired from the compound at the US forces and their choppers. Their chopper developed some technical fault and crashed and the wreckage was left on the spot,” according to a Pakistani official; (c) a reference to the “rescue” of famed dramatic Marine Jessica Lynch which turned out to be a PR stunt (“Was Bin Laden assault a Jessica Lynch-Style Fable?”); and (d) the cover-up of the death of American football star turned Special Forces in Afghanistan Pat Tillman who was killed by fellow US soldiers after he questioned the war.
Finally, on the matter of 9/11 and who really did it, prisonplanet.com reports, “Top US Government Insider: Bin Laden Died in 2001, 9/11 a False Flag,” referring to Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, who worked at influential positions under three different presidents and still works with the Defense Department, going on Internet radio on The Alex Jones Show, stating that Osama bin Laden died in 2001 and that he would be ready anytime to testify to a grand jury how a top general told him directly that 9/11 was an inside job. That should uncover the whole truth. But surely, the US ruling class dreads the day when this shall come to pass.
(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m.; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, with this week’s topic, “Ten Years of PNAC: Project for a New American Century;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/6/2011
Barack Obama timed the Osama bin Laden action-drama, tagged by the Inquirer as an “Epic raid like spy thriller,” for several major dilemmas the US is facing today. First is the massive deleterious impact of the US-Nato bombing of a residential area that killed Moammar Kadaffi’s second youngest son Saif al-Arab and his three pre-teen grandsons. Second is Obama’s dwindling poll numbers while entering an election year. Third is the Establishment’s worry that on the 10th year since 9/11 — after the destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) Twin Towers, including Building 7, with close to 3,000 victims — up to 84 percent of Americans, based on a 2006 New York Times/CBS News poll, reject the official US government story while over 80 percent support actor Charlie Sheen’s view that 9/11 was an “inside job” by high government officials.
This Obama stunt is the latest in a long history of hoaxes in aid of warmongering, going back to the fake Sinking of the Maine to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, to Bush’s 9/11 as well as Saddam’s WMD.
One of Kadaffi’s sons, Saif al-Arab, was wounded together with younger brother Khamis, back in the 1986 bombings (ordered by Ronald Reagan) that killed their 15-month-old adopted sister, but was not so fortunate this time in this second act of US barbarism against the Kadadfis.
I know the massive emotional impact these murders of innocents must have had on the entire Arab world since I, not even an Arab, felt the great injustice like a sword through my own heart. If I were in Libya, I would take up arms against the invaders too. I can see how the incident will fire up all Arab peoples, even in the puppet Arab countries, as well as other nations against this blatant Western aggression. Hence, Obama staged this “epic raid like spy thriller” to divert attention from the mourning for Kadaffi’s kin and their burial on land (which Muslim tradition requires, as against a burial-at-sea which the cowardly lying Americans did for the alleged Osama corpse).
I empathize with Kadaffi, as a father and grandfather, for the sacrifices made for his children (who represent the hope of the nation) and, more importantly, for his continued struggle against the real tyrants of this world. As a Filipino, I am ashamed at the way local mainstream media have groveled at the feet of US and Nato propaganda, re-issuing Western media lies for domestic Filipino consumption.
All told, they are merely part of the global warmongering and oppression, of the campaign of dehumanization against emerging nations such as Libya, the Philippines, and the rest of the Third World. Either that or they are just stupid — stupid to believe that the 9/11 WTC atrocities could have been planned and executed by pre-modern mujaheddins hiding in the most backward areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and stupid for refusing to read the genuine American conscience, such as the 700 scientists, architects, and engineers for “9/11 Truth,” who say the entire WTC collapse was a “controlled demolition.”
Fortunately for us all, Obama’s “epic spy thriller” script didn’t stay intact long enough to convince many. As soon as the tale hit the media, it began to unravel. Initially, the US said bin Laden fought back and used his wife as a human shield. That story quickly changed when other officials denied it. Then, as Bin Laden’s face, battered and smashed by bullets, appeared on the Internet, this was later proven by skeptics as a manipulation of two of his old photos.
Chinese media, which had reporters on the ground but were kept a distance away, initially reported that it was Pakistani troops that raided the alleged Bin Laden “mansion” but later retracted this. The “mansion” being reported by Western media turns out to be an ordinary three-story building typical of the community of many retired Pakistani military and civil service residents there. But the real fly in the ointment was the “burial-at-sea” which puts the Bin Laden body beyond verification.
The evidence of the lie is there for all to see. We culled the following from the best compilation of materials on the subject, prisonplanet.com: (a) photographs acquired by Reuters and taken about an hour after the US assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons; (b) “Not a single bullet was fired from the compound at the US forces and their choppers. Their chopper developed some technical fault and crashed and the wreckage was left on the spot,” according to a Pakistani official; (c) a reference to the “rescue” of famed dramatic Marine Jessica Lynch which turned out to be a PR stunt (“Was Bin Laden assault a Jessica Lynch-Style Fable?”); and (d) the cover-up of the death of American football star turned Special Forces in Afghanistan Pat Tillman who was killed by fellow US soldiers after he questioned the war.
Finally, on the matter of 9/11 and who really did it, prisonplanet.com reports, “Top US Government Insider: Bin Laden Died in 2001, 9/11 a False Flag,” referring to Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, who worked at influential positions under three different presidents and still works with the Defense Department, going on Internet radio on The Alex Jones Show, stating that Osama bin Laden died in 2001 and that he would be ready anytime to testify to a grand jury how a top general told him directly that 9/11 was an inside job. That should uncover the whole truth. But surely, the US ruling class dreads the day when this shall come to pass.
(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m.; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, with this week’s topic, “Ten Years of PNAC: Project for a New American Century;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Public service justifies payment of taxes
KIBITZER
Rod Kapunan
5/2-7/2011
The followers of that criminally inspired neo-liberal ideology failed to sort out that the reason that justify governments to collect taxes is not just anchored on the duty to provide security for the people, but to provide them public service.
While we concede that people must pay taxes to raise the money needed to protect them, we know that it could equally work the other way; to be used as an instrument to oppress them.
The neo-liberals would argue that only the private sector could provide public service; could bring down the cost of goods and services, and reduce the amount of taxes, thereby eliminating graft and corruption.
Indeed, these were the assumptions that reached its peak during the Ramos government when it sold left and right government-owned corporations, like the privatization of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), the North and South Expressways, the National Steel Corporation, Philippine Airlines, etc.
‘Taboo’
To begin with, in a privatized society “public service” is a taboo for accordingly everything that one would like to enjoy and own must be paid for by him.
This explains why the elite are able to live longer because they could afford to pay all that would help extend their life, like buying organs from donors or getting them from cadavers.
If only they could buy immortality they would do so.
On the other hand, public service is designed to temper the harshness of inequality, not really by establishing a regimented society, but to enhance their chances of survival to reduce the incidence of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, disease, ignorance, unemployment, etc.
Beyond Public Works
In fact, modern interpretation of public service now goes beyond constructing roads, bridges, public markets, airports, wharves, but includes the overseeing of the people’s welfare.
Thus, humane societies have kept on widening the horizons of public welfare to include the giving of free universal education, health service, including hospitalization and the giving
of medicines for free or at a discounted price; protecting labor by guaranteeing employment, and most important of regulating the profit so that the prices of goods and services could be maintained at affordable level.
The paradox is, when all the channels that produce wealth are in private hands, the government parenthetically losses much of its income that as a result it will have to impose more taxes to support itself.
Everything Privatized
The question is when the government limits its role to just collecting taxes, would that justify its existence? Such is asked because criminal organizations, like the Mafia, have been collecting protection rackets from people without them giving anything in return.
The problem with this criminally- inspired ideology is that they want everything privatized, but wants to use the government to oppress the people.
For instance, when people are deprived of water by way of higher cost per cubic meter, then why are they paying taxes when supposedly water is a God-given element that the government should take care to ensure that it will be available to all, including the farmers that produce the food we eat.
Similarly, what good is there in paying taxes when, in addition to the road-users tax, vehicle and transport owners pay the toll fees just to pass the highway to get to their job that should they fail could spell a much serious problem for them?
Encouraging Mendicancy
What good is the giving of franchise to public utility operators, like that of electricity, to protect their investments, when owners now could conveniently pass them on to their consumers in violation of PD No. 551, thus assuring protection of their privilege without paying a centavo despite the high cost of electricity.
The local disciples of the neoliberal ideology would argue that we should increase the VAT to 15 percent from the current rate of 12 percent. They say in other countries, like China, the VAT there is already at 17 percent.
But the amount is not the problem for even if they will increase that to 50 percent or raise the income tax to 60 to 65 percent, as in the Scandinavian countries, the people there are getting much of what they pay.
Here, our taxes aside from being looted are used to encourage mendicancy and to promote cosmetic programs for political imaging and mileage.
Less Corruption
Another argument raised by the neo-liberals is that less government presence and intervention means less corruption.
Maybe corruption in its classic sense has been minimized if we follow the theory that corruption only takes place in government service.
But Korean economist Ha- Joon Chang in his book “Bad Samaritan”, categorically admitted capitalism as a defective system.
Inescapably, when certain businesses are engaged in hoarding to artificially keep high the price of their commodities, resort to smuggling to avoid the payment of customs duties, undervalue their sales to reduce their taxes, engaged in dollar salting, buy-out other businesses to achieve a monopoly, engage in cartel to bar other players, etc., could we not classify them as corruption done by the private sector?
Systematic Graft
Yes, we have drastically reduced the bureaucracy which has been blamed as the source of corruption. But in lieu we allowed politicians to bloat their number of sinecure employees.
As one would say, the sinecure employees of politicians are not only lazy, but are more greedy and corrupt than those career employees they fired.
It is this incidence and magnitude of corruption that placed us the second most corrupt country in Asia to debunk the supposition of that criminally-inspired neo-liberal ideology that privatization could reduce corruption.
Today, corruption has become vicious because people are not only burdened with high taxes, and get nothing in return, but realize the money they pay is being systematically looted through graft.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Rod Kapunan
5/2-7/2011
The followers of that criminally inspired neo-liberal ideology failed to sort out that the reason that justify governments to collect taxes is not just anchored on the duty to provide security for the people, but to provide them public service.
While we concede that people must pay taxes to raise the money needed to protect them, we know that it could equally work the other way; to be used as an instrument to oppress them.
The neo-liberals would argue that only the private sector could provide public service; could bring down the cost of goods and services, and reduce the amount of taxes, thereby eliminating graft and corruption.
Indeed, these were the assumptions that reached its peak during the Ramos government when it sold left and right government-owned corporations, like the privatization of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), the North and South Expressways, the National Steel Corporation, Philippine Airlines, etc.
‘Taboo’
To begin with, in a privatized society “public service” is a taboo for accordingly everything that one would like to enjoy and own must be paid for by him.
This explains why the elite are able to live longer because they could afford to pay all that would help extend their life, like buying organs from donors or getting them from cadavers.
If only they could buy immortality they would do so.
On the other hand, public service is designed to temper the harshness of inequality, not really by establishing a regimented society, but to enhance their chances of survival to reduce the incidence of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, disease, ignorance, unemployment, etc.
Beyond Public Works
In fact, modern interpretation of public service now goes beyond constructing roads, bridges, public markets, airports, wharves, but includes the overseeing of the people’s welfare.
Thus, humane societies have kept on widening the horizons of public welfare to include the giving of free universal education, health service, including hospitalization and the giving
of medicines for free or at a discounted price; protecting labor by guaranteeing employment, and most important of regulating the profit so that the prices of goods and services could be maintained at affordable level.
The paradox is, when all the channels that produce wealth are in private hands, the government parenthetically losses much of its income that as a result it will have to impose more taxes to support itself.
Everything Privatized
The question is when the government limits its role to just collecting taxes, would that justify its existence? Such is asked because criminal organizations, like the Mafia, have been collecting protection rackets from people without them giving anything in return.
The problem with this criminally- inspired ideology is that they want everything privatized, but wants to use the government to oppress the people.
For instance, when people are deprived of water by way of higher cost per cubic meter, then why are they paying taxes when supposedly water is a God-given element that the government should take care to ensure that it will be available to all, including the farmers that produce the food we eat.
Similarly, what good is there in paying taxes when, in addition to the road-users tax, vehicle and transport owners pay the toll fees just to pass the highway to get to their job that should they fail could spell a much serious problem for them?
Encouraging Mendicancy
What good is the giving of franchise to public utility operators, like that of electricity, to protect their investments, when owners now could conveniently pass them on to their consumers in violation of PD No. 551, thus assuring protection of their privilege without paying a centavo despite the high cost of electricity.
The local disciples of the neoliberal ideology would argue that we should increase the VAT to 15 percent from the current rate of 12 percent. They say in other countries, like China, the VAT there is already at 17 percent.
But the amount is not the problem for even if they will increase that to 50 percent or raise the income tax to 60 to 65 percent, as in the Scandinavian countries, the people there are getting much of what they pay.
Here, our taxes aside from being looted are used to encourage mendicancy and to promote cosmetic programs for political imaging and mileage.
Less Corruption
Another argument raised by the neo-liberals is that less government presence and intervention means less corruption.
Maybe corruption in its classic sense has been minimized if we follow the theory that corruption only takes place in government service.
But Korean economist Ha- Joon Chang in his book “Bad Samaritan”, categorically admitted capitalism as a defective system.
Inescapably, when certain businesses are engaged in hoarding to artificially keep high the price of their commodities, resort to smuggling to avoid the payment of customs duties, undervalue their sales to reduce their taxes, engaged in dollar salting, buy-out other businesses to achieve a monopoly, engage in cartel to bar other players, etc., could we not classify them as corruption done by the private sector?
Systematic Graft
Yes, we have drastically reduced the bureaucracy which has been blamed as the source of corruption. But in lieu we allowed politicians to bloat their number of sinecure employees.
As one would say, the sinecure employees of politicians are not only lazy, but are more greedy and corrupt than those career employees they fired.
It is this incidence and magnitude of corruption that placed us the second most corrupt country in Asia to debunk the supposition of that criminally-inspired neo-liberal ideology that privatization could reduce corruption.
Today, corruption has become vicious because people are not only burdened with high taxes, and get nothing in return, but realize the money they pay is being systematically looted through graft.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
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