YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
11/14-20/2011
“Do unto others, as you would like others, to do unto you!” This is the Greatest Commandment.
Shall we follow this Greatest of All Commandments that sums them all up as one?
Or, shall we be selective in our choice of what to follow and what not to follow?
Shall we do whatever we want to do to others and still expect them not to do the same to us?
Or, do we believe, like the Aquinos, that we are always right and “they” are always wrong!
Accused-in-Waiting
The question at hand, is, whether to allow or not to allow former President GMA and former First Gentleman Mike Tuason Arroyo to leave the Philippines and go abroad while they are still “accused-in-waiting?”
As of press time, we know of no cases that have already been filed in court against GMA and the FG.
And yet the incompetent Aquino Administration has been in power for more than five hundred days or a year, four months and two weeks already.
By the end of the year, it will be into one fourth of its six-year term.
And yet, we see no improvements in its ability to govern.
Hardly Any to Show
If, on the one hand, any new administration or official needs time to learn its or his job, in the case of P-Noy and his Ka… , we see no “so-called” learning curve.
In terms of ability, experience, knowledge, even wisdom, P-Noy and his Administration are flat, Zero, as in “Wala Talaga!”
However, in terms of perception, he, his officials and the whole Aquino Administration have what is definitely not flat, nor a mere plateau. They are in precipitous decline.
Considering that the centerpiece slogans of his program of government and reform, as promised in the September 2009 to May 2010 campaign, were “Walang Mahirap, pag Walang Korap!” and “Matuwid na Daan!,” P-Noy has hardly any accomplishments to show.
His first and biggest mistake was to create a Constitutionally-infirm Truth Commission and rely on it completely, to deliver on his biggest and noisiest campaign promises. He did not employ or have multilevel strategy and tactics. In case his plan A failed or was lacking, he did not have a Plan B, C, etc…
Top Cronies
Although, the Ombudsman was in the hands of a GMA Loyalist and a Law Classmate of the former FG, Merceditas “Mercy” Gutierrez, P-Noy still had a feisty, and still very credible, at that time, Secretary of Justice, Leila de Lima.
As President and Commander–in–Chief, he wielded the entire intelligence, investigation and prosecution arms of the Executive Branch minus, off course, the independent Commission on Audit, COMELEC and Ombudsman.
However, there was nothing to prevent his Administration from coordinating and seeking the help of these independent Constitutional Bodies.
Meanwhile, private individuals and organizations have been filing cases against family members of the Macapagal–Arroyo clan, before the DOJ and Ombudsman for almost a year.
What have become of the cases filed with De Lima’s DOJ?
As for the loyalty and ties of Ombudsman Gutierrez to GMA/FG, do we take it to mean that the anti – corruption and reform programs of then Presidential Candidate Noynoy Aquino were only aimed, designed and good against the immediate Macapagal–Arroyo Family and their close and top cronies.
What about more distant and lower officials who were as guilty, even if to a lesser degree? Will they go scot-free?
Impact on P-Noy’s Credibility
If P-Noy had some brains, he should have planned and implemented a three-phased and three-pronged approach.
Everything starts with intelligence and evidence gathering.
Then come the prosecution.
And finally, the last stage is through the independent judicial process.
While he was still credible and his campaign promises still rung true, he should have prioritized the work of public intelligence and investigative resources.
Government should have harnessed the energies and resources of private individuals and organizations as well, in producing clues, leads, evidences and witnesses against past and present graft and corruption.
It is the latter rather than the former that would have a bigger impact in maintaining P-Noy’s credibility.
However, P-Noy did not have the character necessary to go after his Kabarilans, Kaklases, Kamaganaks, etc… We saw this very early on as regards “Jueteng: and DILG Usec Rico Puno, cousin Tony Boy, brother–in–law Eldon and sister, Balsy."
Appropriate Jurisdiction
Not all government officials and employees have to be tried by the Sandiganbayan.
Below a certain salary grade, jurisdiction resides in the ordinary fiscals to prosecute and the ordinary courts to try.
As a layman, I believe that the DOJ can investigate and prosecute all levels of government officials.
The differentiation would come at the third phase, the court with the appropriate jurisdiction.
P-Noy should have utilized the DOJ against a broad range of grafters, past and present, and filed cases more expeditiously both before the Ombudsman and the appropriate courts.
If he had done this, he would not have appeared personal and vindictive.
In which case, he would have held the moral high ground instead of descending to the gutter of “Ka Cronyism.”
Target and Victim
He should have been doing all of these while waiting for the final Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Truth Commission.
If the Supreme Court had not overturned the creation of the Truth Commission, the not impartial former Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide would have provided a much better venue, than the DOJ or Ombudsman Carpio Morales, for a simultaneous Trial by Publicity.
In much the same way, if Ombudsman Gutierrez had not resigned, her Impeachment, being more political than judicial, would have been a terrific Trial by Publicity of the GMA Administration.
However, P-Noy was deprived of both of these.
Therefore, he ended up having or being the target and victim of bad publicity most of the time. And at the end of the day, they have been so incompetent as to have let the Cats, GMA and FG, legally out of the bag.
Here, we keep our fingers crossed as to whether the Supreme Court will issue a TRO against the illegal and unconstitutional DOJ Memorandum Circular that is the basis for Immigration not to allow the departure of GMA and FG, between our Press Deadline and the time we hit the Bookstores and Kapihans on Mondays.
Acting Faster
There is also a second possibility, and that is that before a Supreme Court TRO can be issued and the Arroyos can fly the coop, the DOJ or Ombudsman files even a single criminal case against either or both of them, namely, GMA and FG.
The question is whether a Government that is more noted for incompetence and inefficiency will be able to act faster with a Court issued Hold Departure Order, than the DOJ was not able to in the case of Ramgen Revilla murder suspect Ramona Bautista.
P-Noy should have depended on his badly thought out Truth Commission more for Propaganda than Justice and Reform.
Maybe, all these debate regarding the illegal and unconstitutional DOJ Memorandum Circular, would be academic in so far as the million dollar question at hand is concerned.
Appropriate Courts
A case or cases should have already been filed against both GMA and FG, as well as Mikey perhaps. Warrants of Arrest should have been issued by the appropriate courts.
Even if the cases were not for Capital Offenses or Plunder, a proper court should have acquired the Legal Jurisdiction to Issue a Legal Hold Departure Order.
And that should have been the case even if, bail had been granted, posted and availed of, so that the accused could be at Liberty within the territory of the Philippines.
What a “Palpak!”
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
That anti-Aquino-Cojuangco YouTube video
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
11/14/2011
As of the last count, I read that 577,000 hits had already registered for YouTube video, “Aquino-Cojuangco: Facts they don’t want you to know.” That’s what some would call having gone “viral.” Made by “PinoyMonkeyPride Production,” the opening sequence introduces us to a riveting historical account while offering a glimpse into the makers’ real intentions.
The story begins with the Philippine Revolution and Gen. Antonio Luna taking the gold of the revolutionary movement from the Ilocos treasury and the Governor of Pampanga to Paniqui, Tarlac, specifically to the home of Luna’s supposed girlfriend, Ysidra Cojuangco. Three days later, Luna was assassinated by Aguinaldo officers and the “gold treasures of the First Philippine Republic suddenly disappeared,” which “even the American forces couldn’t find.”
By the year 1900, “Ysidra Cojuangco became one of the richest women in the Philippines,” leading to the expansion of Cojuangco lands across central Luzon, the establishment of the Paniqui Sugar Mills, the Finance and Investments Corp. and the Philippine Bank of Commerce, among other things.
By the 1930s, the family owned 12,000 hectares and controlled the rice trade of the entire province of Tarlac. It goes on to tell of the Cojuangcos’ invasion of politics, beginning with Melecio Cojuangco in Congress, followed by a long, long line down to Gibo, with special highlights on Corazon Aquino and son Noynoy. A voice fired off a list of all Cojuangco politicos in machinegun mode while decrying the lack of progress in the family’s home turf.
The narrative then moves on to the union of the two Tarlac clans, with the wedding of Ninoy Aquino and Corazon Cojuangco, whose matrimonial ninong was President Ramon Magsaysay.
With the crony deal concluded in 1958 for the Cojuangcos’ purchase of Compania Tabacalera’s Azucarera with government money, Magsaysay provided two conditions: The inclusion of the adjoining Hacienda Luisita and the distribution of hacienda lands to its farmers after 10 years.
We all know where that story ends and the video names the hundreds killed in the course of the Cojuangcos’ defense of the hacienda over the decades, including the Luisita Massacre and the murder of farmer-supporter Bishop Alberto Ramento, plus, the violation of the land reform law by Cory herself when she was president.
The video goes on to present Ninoy as the non-hero who died only for his ambition (as distinguished from Jose Rizal), as well as of Cory restoring the oligarchs; of Kris being the “Mary Magdalene of Media;” and of Noynoy as the “blame game” rock star.
I have been telling almost the exact same story in debunking the myths of the Yellow media, which the video brands as “Pro-Poor, Pro-Poverty, Pro-Oligarchy” Yellow Propaganda.
While I am happy that it is somehow shattering the hold that the Yellows still have over the mind of many Filipinos, especially the youth, there is one caveat that the public should take note of: It is part of a more insidious campaign to subvert a more basic issue for our nation.
The subliminal message does this so well by first latching on to the popular antipathy against oligarch families like the Aquino-Cojuangcos and then intersperses this with the argument that since the nationalist economic provisions in our Constitution only protects the oligarchs, the charter must be changed to open the country to foreigners.
This “Aquino-Cojuangco” video is part of a seemingly very well-funded Web campaign that clamors for Charter change (Cha-cha) and the removal of the protectionist provisions in our Constitution, as well as the shift to a parliamentary form of government. It is part of a series of YouTube videos that links up with GetRealPhilippines.com and AntiPinoy.com.
While I have issues in these sites that I can enthusiastically agree with, this one enigma — their push for the opening up of the Philippines to untrammeled entry of foreign capital and control of its economy; and for the removal of restrictions on foreign ownership of our national patrimony and media through Cha-cha by any means (including constituent assembly), which they say will end the rule and abuse of the local oligarchy — casts a very dark shadow on all the rest.
Given that we can already see the West having tumultuous revolts in the occupy protests against their own oligarchs, from the Wall Street mafia, Warren Buffet, et al., General Motors, to even Rupert Murdoch and the other media mega-corporations, that call to get rid of the local oligarchs, and in their place welcome their foreign counterparts, is simply inane. How can anyone think that giving the Philippines to these voracious profit gorgers will make things better for us?
The global oligarchs won’t be kinder and gentler than the local oligarchs have been to the Filipino public all these decades. The two will only reinforce each other.
Therefore, the antithesis to the local oligarchy is not the global oligarchy. The antithesis to both is national or popular ownership!
If there is to be any change in the Constitution, what’s needed is the further protection of the nation and the people’s fundamental economic rights. This can only be done through the nationalization and/or cooperativization of, among other things, basic and strategic utilities and industries, basic function of issuing money and credit management, the fundamental right to work, and the right to be free from the abuse and exploitation of private monopolies. Only through these can the state ensure the right of every citizen to employment, affordable food, low-cost government services, medical care, education and basic shelter.
PinoyMonkeyPride, AntiPinoy, and GetRealPhilippines are really insulting the Filipino intelligence if, like Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile and House Speaker Sonny Belmonte, they think Filipinos of all classes don’t already know that the country’s highest power costs in Asia is the very thing keeping local and foreign investments away — instead of the restriction on foreigners from owning properties and corporations in the Philippines, who, it must be said, already own the local oligarchs here.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 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 TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
11/14/2011
As of the last count, I read that 577,000 hits had already registered for YouTube video, “Aquino-Cojuangco: Facts they don’t want you to know.” That’s what some would call having gone “viral.” Made by “PinoyMonkeyPride Production,” the opening sequence introduces us to a riveting historical account while offering a glimpse into the makers’ real intentions.
The story begins with the Philippine Revolution and Gen. Antonio Luna taking the gold of the revolutionary movement from the Ilocos treasury and the Governor of Pampanga to Paniqui, Tarlac, specifically to the home of Luna’s supposed girlfriend, Ysidra Cojuangco. Three days later, Luna was assassinated by Aguinaldo officers and the “gold treasures of the First Philippine Republic suddenly disappeared,” which “even the American forces couldn’t find.”
By the year 1900, “Ysidra Cojuangco became one of the richest women in the Philippines,” leading to the expansion of Cojuangco lands across central Luzon, the establishment of the Paniqui Sugar Mills, the Finance and Investments Corp. and the Philippine Bank of Commerce, among other things.
By the 1930s, the family owned 12,000 hectares and controlled the rice trade of the entire province of Tarlac. It goes on to tell of the Cojuangcos’ invasion of politics, beginning with Melecio Cojuangco in Congress, followed by a long, long line down to Gibo, with special highlights on Corazon Aquino and son Noynoy. A voice fired off a list of all Cojuangco politicos in machinegun mode while decrying the lack of progress in the family’s home turf.
The narrative then moves on to the union of the two Tarlac clans, with the wedding of Ninoy Aquino and Corazon Cojuangco, whose matrimonial ninong was President Ramon Magsaysay.
With the crony deal concluded in 1958 for the Cojuangcos’ purchase of Compania Tabacalera’s Azucarera with government money, Magsaysay provided two conditions: The inclusion of the adjoining Hacienda Luisita and the distribution of hacienda lands to its farmers after 10 years.
We all know where that story ends and the video names the hundreds killed in the course of the Cojuangcos’ defense of the hacienda over the decades, including the Luisita Massacre and the murder of farmer-supporter Bishop Alberto Ramento, plus, the violation of the land reform law by Cory herself when she was president.
The video goes on to present Ninoy as the non-hero who died only for his ambition (as distinguished from Jose Rizal), as well as of Cory restoring the oligarchs; of Kris being the “Mary Magdalene of Media;” and of Noynoy as the “blame game” rock star.
I have been telling almost the exact same story in debunking the myths of the Yellow media, which the video brands as “Pro-Poor, Pro-Poverty, Pro-Oligarchy” Yellow Propaganda.
While I am happy that it is somehow shattering the hold that the Yellows still have over the mind of many Filipinos, especially the youth, there is one caveat that the public should take note of: It is part of a more insidious campaign to subvert a more basic issue for our nation.
The subliminal message does this so well by first latching on to the popular antipathy against oligarch families like the Aquino-Cojuangcos and then intersperses this with the argument that since the nationalist economic provisions in our Constitution only protects the oligarchs, the charter must be changed to open the country to foreigners.
This “Aquino-Cojuangco” video is part of a seemingly very well-funded Web campaign that clamors for Charter change (Cha-cha) and the removal of the protectionist provisions in our Constitution, as well as the shift to a parliamentary form of government. It is part of a series of YouTube videos that links up with GetRealPhilippines.com and AntiPinoy.com.
While I have issues in these sites that I can enthusiastically agree with, this one enigma — their push for the opening up of the Philippines to untrammeled entry of foreign capital and control of its economy; and for the removal of restrictions on foreign ownership of our national patrimony and media through Cha-cha by any means (including constituent assembly), which they say will end the rule and abuse of the local oligarchy — casts a very dark shadow on all the rest.
Given that we can already see the West having tumultuous revolts in the occupy protests against their own oligarchs, from the Wall Street mafia, Warren Buffet, et al., General Motors, to even Rupert Murdoch and the other media mega-corporations, that call to get rid of the local oligarchs, and in their place welcome their foreign counterparts, is simply inane. How can anyone think that giving the Philippines to these voracious profit gorgers will make things better for us?
The global oligarchs won’t be kinder and gentler than the local oligarchs have been to the Filipino public all these decades. The two will only reinforce each other.
Therefore, the antithesis to the local oligarchy is not the global oligarchy. The antithesis to both is national or popular ownership!
If there is to be any change in the Constitution, what’s needed is the further protection of the nation and the people’s fundamental economic rights. This can only be done through the nationalization and/or cooperativization of, among other things, basic and strategic utilities and industries, basic function of issuing money and credit management, the fundamental right to work, and the right to be free from the abuse and exploitation of private monopolies. Only through these can the state ensure the right of every citizen to employment, affordable food, low-cost government services, medical care, education and basic shelter.
PinoyMonkeyPride, AntiPinoy, and GetRealPhilippines are really insulting the Filipino intelligence if, like Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile and House Speaker Sonny Belmonte, they think Filipinos of all classes don’t already know that the country’s highest power costs in Asia is the very thing keeping local and foreign investments away — instead of the restriction on foreigners from owning properties and corporations in the Philippines, who, it must be said, already own the local oligarchs here.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 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 TV and radio archives)
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Belmonte’s last HURA
BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
11/12-13/2011
There is nothing wrong with putting up a corporation, especially if motivated with some “laudable” projects, like building low-cost housing and carrying out urban renewal for the city. But in Quezon City, its officials, many of whom were not even elected by the residents, organized a corporation and giving it a high-sounding name called “Quezon City Housing and Urban Renewal Authority (QC-HURA), Inc.”
Among the incorporators of this mutant corporation that was granted certificate of incorporation by the SEC on July 15, 2003, were Feliciano Belmonte, Jr., former mayor and now Speaker of the House; Herbert Bautista, the incumbent mayor; councilor Jesus Suntay; Tadeo Palma, secretary to the office of the Mayor; Paquito Ochoa, Jr., former city administrator and now executive secretary; Bernadette Herrera-Dy, now party-list representative; and Salvador Enriquez, Jr., former budget secretary and now president and general manager of QC-HURA, Inc.
There are asking why our big time operators in City Hall took it to themselves to organize a corporation using the funds of the city government, specifically its revenues, with them openly parading as incorporators. These people should know that as officials they are required by law to divest their holdings in any private corporation, and the reason behind is to prevent then from incurring possible conflict of interest. In their case, they defied with impunity the ban by using their position to funnel the funds entrusted to them to their newly-created “private corporation.”
One lawyer whom this column consulted said local governments are prohibited from forming a corporation, be it public or private. Only Congress, by a legislative act, can create a government-owned and controlled corporation, irrespective of its purpose, and whether its scope and jurisdiction is national or local. The prohibition goes with the saying that public funds cannot be diverted by the simple expedient of forming a corporation, and making it appear that their systematic looting of public funds is legal all because they complied with the requirements of registering their corporation with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Aside from being required to have their own charter, the law mandates the officers to act independently, as they can likewise be held liable for graft and corruption. Hence, for all their ranting of QC-HURA, Inc. as a city--owned corporation, it is nothing more but an illegal corporation using the funds of the city as their seed capital, and the incorporators having their final say on how they intend to dispose of the funds they looted from the city government.
As the lawyer explained, for the city government to appropriate an amount to an illegal corporation amounts to malversation, and those who allowed it, including those now manning that questionable corporation, are liable for graft and corruption. For the fact that the amount is more than P50 million that now could make them liable for plunder for illegally diverting the funds of the city government to a “private corporation” thinking it could transform the status of the funds to a private fund, with them free to hire their private external auditor.
What is shocking about this last HURA of Belmonte and his acolytes is their enumeration of its primary duties. Among them: 1) “To own, develop, improve, administer, deal in, subdivide or lease any and all kinds of lands, buildings, estates and other forms of real property, owned, managed, controlled and/or operated by the Quezon City Government”; 2) “To borrow funds from any local or foreign institution independent of the bonds it may issue or may continue to issue, to carry out its purposes; and” 3) “To enter into contracts of any kind and description, to enable it to carryout its purposes and functions.”
Evidently clear in the ultra vires purposes of this questionable corporation is it practically usurped all the functions of the city council where as a matter of legal procedure every undertaking requiring the release of public funds has to be approved by an ordinance. The premium to this circumvention is it allowed the incorporators to open a sluice channel directly to their corporation with no responsibility to the people of Quezon City, they not having been elected or if were elected before are no longer officials of the city government. Some are even be thinking they could continue their racket of siphoning the funds of the city for as long as the illegal ordinance is not repealed, superseded or abrogated by another ordinance.
Curiously enough, the city government approved recently an ordinance dated October 17, 2011 imposing a special assessment tax equivalent to 0.5 percent of the assessed value of the land in excess of P100,000.00, as if there is still a property in the city valued less than that. The proponents, mostly hucksters of that Bautista-Belmonte tandem in the City Council, argued they need P223 million to finance the socialized housing and urban development forgetting it was their erstwhile boss who made a valedictory bluff of leaving a P6.5 billion surplus to the coffers of the city.
The question that puzzles is why Mayor Herbert Bautista and his confederates kept it to themselves the existence of QC-HURA, Inc. which was approved by city ordinance SP-1236 S-2003. Even if at its face the ordinance is patently illegal, the city government paid P100 million for the paid up capital upon incorporation, with the remaining P150 million of its subscribed capital paid later. In that one could see how these hustlers committed P250 million of our taxes to finance their “privatized corporation,” which they could operate even if they have long been trashed out by the voters of Quezon City.
If one will dissect QC-HURA, Inc., it states to have a subscribed capital of P250 million divided into 250,000 shares. All the mentioned incorporators contributed less than one percent of its capital stocks, while committing the city government they have made their regular milking cow to subscribe more than 99 percent amounting to P249,993,000.00. The ugly part is while the incorporators contributed a consuelo de bobo of P1,000 each representing their respective one share of stock, the city government paid the P249,993,000.00 for the project that is now being repeated by the so-called “socialized housing tax.”
Many are wondering because the objectives of this dubious corporation are no different to the objectives of their newly approved ordinance. The question is not even about the duplication of funds and functions, but the ulterior motive for clearly we have been witnessing how our corrupt and greedy officials in City Hall have been imposing confiscatory taxes left and right that every time they run out of money all they do is pass an ordinance, an actuation no different from an alley extortionist.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Rod Kapunan
11/12-13/2011
There is nothing wrong with putting up a corporation, especially if motivated with some “laudable” projects, like building low-cost housing and carrying out urban renewal for the city. But in Quezon City, its officials, many of whom were not even elected by the residents, organized a corporation and giving it a high-sounding name called “Quezon City Housing and Urban Renewal Authority (QC-HURA), Inc.”
Among the incorporators of this mutant corporation that was granted certificate of incorporation by the SEC on July 15, 2003, were Feliciano Belmonte, Jr., former mayor and now Speaker of the House; Herbert Bautista, the incumbent mayor; councilor Jesus Suntay; Tadeo Palma, secretary to the office of the Mayor; Paquito Ochoa, Jr., former city administrator and now executive secretary; Bernadette Herrera-Dy, now party-list representative; and Salvador Enriquez, Jr., former budget secretary and now president and general manager of QC-HURA, Inc.
There are asking why our big time operators in City Hall took it to themselves to organize a corporation using the funds of the city government, specifically its revenues, with them openly parading as incorporators. These people should know that as officials they are required by law to divest their holdings in any private corporation, and the reason behind is to prevent then from incurring possible conflict of interest. In their case, they defied with impunity the ban by using their position to funnel the funds entrusted to them to their newly-created “private corporation.”
One lawyer whom this column consulted said local governments are prohibited from forming a corporation, be it public or private. Only Congress, by a legislative act, can create a government-owned and controlled corporation, irrespective of its purpose, and whether its scope and jurisdiction is national or local. The prohibition goes with the saying that public funds cannot be diverted by the simple expedient of forming a corporation, and making it appear that their systematic looting of public funds is legal all because they complied with the requirements of registering their corporation with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Aside from being required to have their own charter, the law mandates the officers to act independently, as they can likewise be held liable for graft and corruption. Hence, for all their ranting of QC-HURA, Inc. as a city--owned corporation, it is nothing more but an illegal corporation using the funds of the city as their seed capital, and the incorporators having their final say on how they intend to dispose of the funds they looted from the city government.
As the lawyer explained, for the city government to appropriate an amount to an illegal corporation amounts to malversation, and those who allowed it, including those now manning that questionable corporation, are liable for graft and corruption. For the fact that the amount is more than P50 million that now could make them liable for plunder for illegally diverting the funds of the city government to a “private corporation” thinking it could transform the status of the funds to a private fund, with them free to hire their private external auditor.
What is shocking about this last HURA of Belmonte and his acolytes is their enumeration of its primary duties. Among them: 1) “To own, develop, improve, administer, deal in, subdivide or lease any and all kinds of lands, buildings, estates and other forms of real property, owned, managed, controlled and/or operated by the Quezon City Government”; 2) “To borrow funds from any local or foreign institution independent of the bonds it may issue or may continue to issue, to carry out its purposes; and” 3) “To enter into contracts of any kind and description, to enable it to carryout its purposes and functions.”
Evidently clear in the ultra vires purposes of this questionable corporation is it practically usurped all the functions of the city council where as a matter of legal procedure every undertaking requiring the release of public funds has to be approved by an ordinance. The premium to this circumvention is it allowed the incorporators to open a sluice channel directly to their corporation with no responsibility to the people of Quezon City, they not having been elected or if were elected before are no longer officials of the city government. Some are even be thinking they could continue their racket of siphoning the funds of the city for as long as the illegal ordinance is not repealed, superseded or abrogated by another ordinance.
Curiously enough, the city government approved recently an ordinance dated October 17, 2011 imposing a special assessment tax equivalent to 0.5 percent of the assessed value of the land in excess of P100,000.00, as if there is still a property in the city valued less than that. The proponents, mostly hucksters of that Bautista-Belmonte tandem in the City Council, argued they need P223 million to finance the socialized housing and urban development forgetting it was their erstwhile boss who made a valedictory bluff of leaving a P6.5 billion surplus to the coffers of the city.
The question that puzzles is why Mayor Herbert Bautista and his confederates kept it to themselves the existence of QC-HURA, Inc. which was approved by city ordinance SP-1236 S-2003. Even if at its face the ordinance is patently illegal, the city government paid P100 million for the paid up capital upon incorporation, with the remaining P150 million of its subscribed capital paid later. In that one could see how these hustlers committed P250 million of our taxes to finance their “privatized corporation,” which they could operate even if they have long been trashed out by the voters of Quezon City.
If one will dissect QC-HURA, Inc., it states to have a subscribed capital of P250 million divided into 250,000 shares. All the mentioned incorporators contributed less than one percent of its capital stocks, while committing the city government they have made their regular milking cow to subscribe more than 99 percent amounting to P249,993,000.00. The ugly part is while the incorporators contributed a consuelo de bobo of P1,000 each representing their respective one share of stock, the city government paid the P249,993,000.00 for the project that is now being repeated by the so-called “socialized housing tax.”
Many are wondering because the objectives of this dubious corporation are no different to the objectives of their newly approved ordinance. The question is not even about the duplication of funds and functions, but the ulterior motive for clearly we have been witnessing how our corrupt and greedy officials in City Hall have been imposing confiscatory taxes left and right that every time they run out of money all they do is pass an ordinance, an actuation no different from an alley extortionist.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
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