In the news
by Tita C. Valderama
UNDAUNTED by the resounding defeat recently of the fourth impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the opposition at the House of Representatives is embarking on another crusade that does not seem to stand a chance of winning, at least under the present administration.
The opposition now seeks to control the president’s wide discretion in disbursing public money, including the lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), derisively called ‘pork barrel,’ and other unspent amounts in the annual budget program.
by Alecks P. Pabico
GLORIA MACAPAGAL-Arroyo will go down in Philippine history as the president with an inglorious track record, at least, on two counts.
First, her popularity rating has hit the pits of negative 38 percent, the worst scored by a president since the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
The economy
by Jaileen F. Jimeno and Karol Anne M. Ilagan
IF THIS country were a family, it is unhealthy, lacking in education and employment opportunities, is deep in debt and spends its limited budget on the wrong things.
This is despite the fact that the head of this household called the Philippines is someone whose expertise is economics.
by Alecks P. Pabico
BACK IN May, speculations were rife that Romulo L. Neri was returning to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) as director general and socioeconomic planning secretary by August. The nasty rumor had so distressed some at NEDA that on a bulletin board next to the ground floor elevator lobby that had been turned into a sort of freedom wall was posted this note from an anonymous commenter:
“I don’t think bringing back Neri to NEDA will be good for the agency. We are now finding out that he maintained a group of advisers/consultants in the likes of Jun Lozada who seemed to act as fixers/moderators of greed. Imagine that! Neri seemed to be running another office corresponding with NEDA staffs whose sole purpose was to take charge of the wheeling and dealing in government. Shall we allow that again?”
Sidebar
by Malou Mangahas
SOON AFTER she took power in January 2001, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo gave her imprimatur for the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation’s (Pagcor) showcase project that she had wanted to christen “Bagong Nayong Pilipino Integrated Tourism City.”
A little more than six years later, Pagcor unveiled its plan for what is now called the “Tourism City” project along Manila Bay.
by Malou Mangahas and Patricia M. De Leon
GLORIA MACAPAGAL Arroyo will go down in Philippine history as the president who made gambling the third biggest source of government revenues, after taxes and customs duties.
Under her watch over the last seven years, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) has grown into a humongous money — and power — machine. Until now the monopolistic state gambling agency, Pagcor’s gross revenues of P13 billion in 2001 more than doubled to P26.83 billion in 2007, or an average annual growth of 18 percent.
by Malou Mangahas and Tita C. Valderama
A COMPANY that has neither track record in the gaming business nor proven financial capability to back up a multibillion-peso enterprise is poised to become the newest investor in the ambitious “Tourism City” project of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor).
But what Bloombury Investments Ltd. lacks in these top two criteria for investors in the Pagcor project, it more than makes up for in terms of political connections, based on records of the state-run corporation itself, as well as information from those privy to the deals.
Public Eye
by Malou Mangahas
UNLIQUIDATED CASH advances, “loans” without records, donations diverted to uses not prescribed by donors, understated expenses, and overstated accounts, in the hundreds of millions of pesos, all sourced from taxpayers’ money.
These irregular transactions in clear breach of government accounting and auditing rules mark financial transactions in the Office of the President (OP) under Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2007, according to Commission on Audit (COA) report, a copy of which was obtained by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).
by Malou Mangahas
IN 2007, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s presidency spent a total of P249.5 million to pay the salaries and wages of its regular employees; and P10.7 million to pay casual and contractual employees.
Combined, that means P260.2 million to pay the rank and file of the Office of the President, and 58 other executive offices, agencies, commissions, and committees under Arroyo.
Sidebar
by Isa Lorenzo
AS POLITICS gains ground in the bureaucracy, the government starts to lose a few good men and women with career-service eligibility.
When Juan Miguel Luz was first offered a position in the fledgling Aquino government, he refused. But after a series of failed coups, he decided to join, along with others from the so-called middle forces, to help secure democratic institutions.
