DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/9/2011
Assuming the real Osama bin Laden was still alive when Obama ordered the US Navy SEALs to raid his Abbottabad lair, and considering that no firefight ensued during the assault as officially reported, why did they have to kill this most wanted “terrorist leader?” Was it out of sheer spite or rage, or a vicarious long distance revenge thrill? Or was it something else?
Washington says it had never intended to capture Bin Laden, only to kill him. US officials have repeatedly tried to equate this with “justice.” Three people died in the assault and a video of the “spy thriller” showed blood splatters where there were neither weapons nor empty shells. Is this the “rule of law” America speaks of? Doesn’t this smack of old Westerns and Charles Bronson vigilante flicks?
Even setting all that aside, the real question remains: Doesn’t the US want to know the details of how bin Laden so masterfully executed the so-called 9/11 terror attacks?
A bin Laden caught alive would have been a treasure trove of information: How did he elude the world’s largest intelligence dragnet (by the CIA, Mossad, and all the allied intelligence operations combined) for 10 years? What were the details of his group’s 9/11 World Trade Center attack plans; and who were the contacts?
A living Osama bin Laden would have also been crucial in finally breaking the back of al-Qaeda’s global network (if ever one does exist outside the realm of US intelligence assets). Flushing out these details would have helped prevent the kind of “terrorist backlash” Uncle Sam is now telling the world to brace for.
From a pragmatic standpoint, wouldn’t keeping Osama alive have been more prudent than simply killing him then saying that the photos of his cadaver can’t be shown as these may further inflame hatred toward the West? Didn’t the US for a minute think that the many countries it calls its allies would certainly have wanted to mine bin Laden for intelligence in solving their own terrorism problems, such as RP’s supposed al-Qaeda cells in Mindanao ?
The more one thinks about it, the more the killing of an unarmed target smacks of “a dead man tells no tales” scenario. Whether it was really bin Laden himself or, as some high Pakistani military sources as well as intelligence researcher Webster Tarpley put it, a “pseudo-bin Laden,” the bottom line is the same: His death gives the US a happy closure (however, tenuous that is). The important thing for now is to give the American people a final end to the story.
Never mind if that leaky closure breaks open again as the corpse was hurriedly sank into the sea. Never mind if a forensic autopsy that could still squeeze some final answers is sure to never occur. All that is of utmost significance is the way the US government insists that it meant only to kill, never to capture — making it out as a state out for bloodthirsty vengeance instead of peace.
Human civilization started organizing international bodies, such as the League of Nations and today the UN, to “end all wars.” These institutions established conventions for conflicts across the globe, the rules of engagement, as well as bodies to try war crimes and such.
However, Obama and the US today, and for the past decades, clearly have had none of these. But should we still be surprised at their barbarity after having seen the atrocities at Guantanamo, the extrajudicial “renditions” of suspects to third countries, the massacre of countless civilians by US Predator drones, or the killing of Gaddafi’s grandchildren and son for which US and Nato express no compunction and apologies for? Even a look back at our own Philippine history will reveal the US’ barbarity in its murder of at least a million of our ancestors.
If any, an occasional admission of collateral damage, with one or two trials (out of thousands of cases against US servicemen) is all that has ever come about. Obama’s effusive triumphalism over the “bin Laden” kill project only infuses a dehumanizing, lawless mindset of “endless war” instilled by the likes of “Clash of Civilizations” prophet Samuel Huntington.
Oddly enough, the real underlying debate in the world today is between that “Clash of Civilizations” paradigm and what Eastern nations such as China and Iran continuously proffer as a “Dialogue of Civilizations.”
Unfortunately, in the midst of the blood and hate-mongering, as well as the promotion of “tit-for-tat” terrorism by the most powerful terror state (the US ) against enemy terror bands (e.g., al-Qaeda), dialog is a lost cause. That is, unless the peoples of the world wake up to the subtle psychological ploys in these “spy thrillers” by Western media.
Allowing the global warmongers to get away with their lies is ushering the world into “endless war” and, imminently, pocket nuclear battles. These are already happening with the depleted uranium contamination in such Iraqi towns as Fallujah and in the Nato bombing of Libya .
In 2001, many among the so-called “conspiracy theorists” already predicted that the US was building up toward war when Dubya Bush pronounced the three words that started it all, the “Axis of Evil.” The wars, of course, did come.
Now, after the bin Laden kill, instead of an end to these terror wars, Hillary Clinton warns the world of al-Qaeda retaliation. Yet, as Western covert forces have time and again committed much graver acts of terror and blamed it on others — no different from Hitler’s burning of the Reichstag — the worst case scenario is a “dirty bomb” somewhere in a population center, which will then be blamed on Western targets (Libya, Syria, Iran, etc.) to justify tactical nuclear weapons use.
Ultimately, the goal is the re-colonization of Africa and the Middle East; then a tightened encirclement of China. It’ll be a repeat of the start of the War in the Pacific where the West embargoed oil to Japan.
(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)
Monday, May 9, 2011
The new 9/11 and WMD hoax
CRITIC'S CRITIC
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/9-15/2011
The destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) north and south towers was not engineered by Al Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden (OBL) because neither had the means. It was an inside job that had the highest American political and security officials involved.
All these years, they’ve been hiding the fact that these were all controlled demolitions. (Else, how was it that WTC Building 7, which was not hit by any plane, also collapsed?) And so today, 70 percent of New Yorkers already doubt the official government story.
In the background lies Israeli intelligence, together with a Jewish financier who gained at least $3.5-billion in insurance payments and sued for up to $7 billion more. George W. Bush used the post-WTC hysteria to attack Afghanistan which supposedly harbored OBL and then Saddam Hussein, despite his anti-OBL disposition, by “sexing up” propaganda on his cache of so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), now totally debunked as a hoax.
This new tale of the US’ killing of OBL is the latest hoax this time around, a new Weapon of Mass “Distraction” to divert people’s attention from the massively negative impact of the US and NATO’s killing of Moammar Gaddafi’s three pre-teen grandchildren and his youngest son Saif al-Arab.
Personally, the impact on me was so great I wanted to write an article entitled “We are all Saif al-Arab today” to commemorate the brutal murder of these innocents by the Western hegemonists. Filipinos may not feel the impact as much as the Arab nations, but the US, NATO, and their Arab puppet allies would have been put in an impossible spot when the bodies of Saif al-Arab and Gaddafi’s grandchildren were presented to the world--which happened but with a muted reaction, owing to the pre-emptive “spy thriller” of OBL’s death (a mood the Americans wanted to project and which the Philippine Daily Inquirer dutifully bannered).
The attention of the world should be on the inhumanity of the US and NATO in Libya, which Obama successfully diverted, along with his own crashing public popularity.
OBL has been a US ally and avatar in the Afghan war against the Russians. The Al Qaeda he is supposed to lead has been exposed again and again in the past. Shortly before his untimely death in August 2005, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.
Given this reminder, it should not be difficult then to understand why the US, NATO, and Al Qaeda are united in Benghazi, Libya to depose Gaddafi. Al Qaeda was used in Kosovo to break up Yugoslavia. Al Qaeda in Mindanao and the MILF are assets of the US and, when necessary for US interest, will be used to rebel in full against the Republic. They’re not that different from the “peace panel” on the Philippine side, which, being made up of US assets, wants a postponement of the ARMM elections--to weaken local government warlords and strengthen their MILF nemeses.
Teddy “Boy” Locsin was wrong on his morning “Mambobola” program of May 3 where he said the killing of Bin Laden spells the end of the “Anti-Terror War.” It will and is already actually escalating as news headlines across the globe show, with justifications on increased heavy armed presence in public places; greater intrusions into privacy via extra-judicial wiretappings; and websites already banning comments questioning Obama’s story on Bin Laden’s “death” (Huffington Post is one). Hasn’t he learned from the local version of Al Qaeda and OBL, the Abu Sayyaf and leaders just as Abubarak (1998) and Kaddafy Janjanlani (2006), whose deaths authorities claimed would have ended the group’s activities, only to have it (Abu Sayyaf) resurrect endlessly whenever the military needed eruptions of violence to suit its ends?
Locsin is also wrong in fawning over Obama for this “kill” and his endorsement of the US forces’ return to RP, which only promotes a repeat of the victimization of the Philippines in World War II as a “sapper” country. It seems the whole caboodle in “Mambobola” has been taken in by the hoax that OBL was cornered in that little house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which, contrary to US reports, the locals deny is a mansion, just 1.5 kilometers from the Pakistan Military Academy (Pakistan’s own West Point). That area must have always swarmed with security and cadets, yet nobody ever noticed anything? Even my youngest twin boys couldn’t believe Obama especially when it was reported that OBL’s body was buried-at-sea. Someone even commented, “Maybe with military honors as a soldier of the US?”
People should recall that popular and dyed-in-the-wool CBS news anchor Dan Rather’s report on 9/11 where he said a CBS investigation discovered that Osama Bin Laden was admitted for dialysis to the military hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on September 10, 2001 under heavy US protection. Fast forward today with that shot of Obama and Hillary Clinton, with their staff, viewing the video of the firefight that supposedly did OBL in, and begin to see flashes of the 1997 “Wag the Dog” flick with Robert de Nero.
Bin Laden, the bogeyman, has been very useful to the US neoconservatives and defense industries for their profit-mongering. The likelihood is that Bin Laden had already died years ago from his kidney failures. There have been numerous assertions in the past from such figures as Benazir Bhutto (before her assassination) that OBL had died. Alex Jones of prisonplanet.com also reports a Republican source telling him OBL has been preserved in cold storage for eventual use. Is that why the alleged corpse was dumped into the ocean?
Former Pakistani intelligence chief Hamid Gul went on the Alex Jones Show and described the unverified assassination of OBL as symbolic theater, a “make believe drama” for Obama’s upcoming re-election campaign. We won’t have the whole story for some time but the truth will out soon, like the WMD lie of Bush and the WTC 9/11 hoax. What we should learn, and Teddy Locsin should take this seriously, is not to be taken for a ride by the warmongers who will ruin this world and this country called the Philippines for the nth time.
Meanwhile, let me point out the major historical error in Gloria Arroyo hack Rigoberto Tiglao’s April 28 column on Danding Cojuangco’s coco levy fund machinations. He is correct that the PCGG exemplifies the height of the Yellow government’s incompetence in failing to nail Danding, but his account of the 1992 elections is wrong--it was not Danding who ran to soil Imelda Marcos’ chances for the presidency but the other way around. The real protector of Danding wasn’t Cory Aquino but the Americans who also probably used him in its operation to martyr Ninoy Aquino and force a counter-democratic revolution in 1986.
On the other hand, I have praises for Ellen Tordesillas on Michael Ray Aquino’s possible extradition. Her blog raises the issue of Fr. Baldostamon who witnessed Almonte’s offer to the Dacer children to see their father, provided they maintain their public mourning. Ellen provided information that I had long searched for, the whereabouts of the priest--in Linköping, Sweden. Very good investigative work, Ellen!
(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/9-15/2011
The destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) north and south towers was not engineered by Al Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden (OBL) because neither had the means. It was an inside job that had the highest American political and security officials involved.
All these years, they’ve been hiding the fact that these were all controlled demolitions. (Else, how was it that WTC Building 7, which was not hit by any plane, also collapsed?) And so today, 70 percent of New Yorkers already doubt the official government story.
In the background lies Israeli intelligence, together with a Jewish financier who gained at least $3.5-billion in insurance payments and sued for up to $7 billion more. George W. Bush used the post-WTC hysteria to attack Afghanistan which supposedly harbored OBL and then Saddam Hussein, despite his anti-OBL disposition, by “sexing up” propaganda on his cache of so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), now totally debunked as a hoax.
This new tale of the US’ killing of OBL is the latest hoax this time around, a new Weapon of Mass “Distraction” to divert people’s attention from the massively negative impact of the US and NATO’s killing of Moammar Gaddafi’s three pre-teen grandchildren and his youngest son Saif al-Arab.
Personally, the impact on me was so great I wanted to write an article entitled “We are all Saif al-Arab today” to commemorate the brutal murder of these innocents by the Western hegemonists. Filipinos may not feel the impact as much as the Arab nations, but the US, NATO, and their Arab puppet allies would have been put in an impossible spot when the bodies of Saif al-Arab and Gaddafi’s grandchildren were presented to the world--which happened but with a muted reaction, owing to the pre-emptive “spy thriller” of OBL’s death (a mood the Americans wanted to project and which the Philippine Daily Inquirer dutifully bannered).
The attention of the world should be on the inhumanity of the US and NATO in Libya, which Obama successfully diverted, along with his own crashing public popularity.
OBL has been a US ally and avatar in the Afghan war against the Russians. The Al Qaeda he is supposed to lead has been exposed again and again in the past. Shortly before his untimely death in August 2005, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.
Given this reminder, it should not be difficult then to understand why the US, NATO, and Al Qaeda are united in Benghazi, Libya to depose Gaddafi. Al Qaeda was used in Kosovo to break up Yugoslavia. Al Qaeda in Mindanao and the MILF are assets of the US and, when necessary for US interest, will be used to rebel in full against the Republic. They’re not that different from the “peace panel” on the Philippine side, which, being made up of US assets, wants a postponement of the ARMM elections--to weaken local government warlords and strengthen their MILF nemeses.
Teddy “Boy” Locsin was wrong on his morning “Mambobola” program of May 3 where he said the killing of Bin Laden spells the end of the “Anti-Terror War.” It will and is already actually escalating as news headlines across the globe show, with justifications on increased heavy armed presence in public places; greater intrusions into privacy via extra-judicial wiretappings; and websites already banning comments questioning Obama’s story on Bin Laden’s “death” (Huffington Post is one). Hasn’t he learned from the local version of Al Qaeda and OBL, the Abu Sayyaf and leaders just as Abubarak (1998) and Kaddafy Janjanlani (2006), whose deaths authorities claimed would have ended the group’s activities, only to have it (Abu Sayyaf) resurrect endlessly whenever the military needed eruptions of violence to suit its ends?
Locsin is also wrong in fawning over Obama for this “kill” and his endorsement of the US forces’ return to RP, which only promotes a repeat of the victimization of the Philippines in World War II as a “sapper” country. It seems the whole caboodle in “Mambobola” has been taken in by the hoax that OBL was cornered in that little house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which, contrary to US reports, the locals deny is a mansion, just 1.5 kilometers from the Pakistan Military Academy (Pakistan’s own West Point). That area must have always swarmed with security and cadets, yet nobody ever noticed anything? Even my youngest twin boys couldn’t believe Obama especially when it was reported that OBL’s body was buried-at-sea. Someone even commented, “Maybe with military honors as a soldier of the US?”
People should recall that popular and dyed-in-the-wool CBS news anchor Dan Rather’s report on 9/11 where he said a CBS investigation discovered that Osama Bin Laden was admitted for dialysis to the military hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on September 10, 2001 under heavy US protection. Fast forward today with that shot of Obama and Hillary Clinton, with their staff, viewing the video of the firefight that supposedly did OBL in, and begin to see flashes of the 1997 “Wag the Dog” flick with Robert de Nero.
Bin Laden, the bogeyman, has been very useful to the US neoconservatives and defense industries for their profit-mongering. The likelihood is that Bin Laden had already died years ago from his kidney failures. There have been numerous assertions in the past from such figures as Benazir Bhutto (before her assassination) that OBL had died. Alex Jones of prisonplanet.com also reports a Republican source telling him OBL has been preserved in cold storage for eventual use. Is that why the alleged corpse was dumped into the ocean?
Former Pakistani intelligence chief Hamid Gul went on the Alex Jones Show and described the unverified assassination of OBL as symbolic theater, a “make believe drama” for Obama’s upcoming re-election campaign. We won’t have the whole story for some time but the truth will out soon, like the WMD lie of Bush and the WTC 9/11 hoax. What we should learn, and Teddy Locsin should take this seriously, is not to be taken for a ride by the warmongers who will ruin this world and this country called the Philippines for the nth time.
Meanwhile, let me point out the major historical error in Gloria Arroyo hack Rigoberto Tiglao’s April 28 column on Danding Cojuangco’s coco levy fund machinations. He is correct that the PCGG exemplifies the height of the Yellow government’s incompetence in failing to nail Danding, but his account of the 1992 elections is wrong--it was not Danding who ran to soil Imelda Marcos’ chances for the presidency but the other way around. The real protector of Danding wasn’t Cory Aquino but the Americans who also probably used him in its operation to martyr Ninoy Aquino and force a counter-democratic revolution in 1986.
On the other hand, I have praises for Ellen Tordesillas on Michael Ray Aquino’s possible extradition. Her blog raises the issue of Fr. Baldostamon who witnessed Almonte’s offer to the Dacer children to see their father, provided they maintain their public mourning. Ellen provided information that I had long searched for, the whereabouts of the priest--in Linköping, Sweden. Very good investigative work, Ellen!
(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Privatization by mortage
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)
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)
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