GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc, The Philippine Star, Monday, April 7, 2008
Quite expectedly Malacañang refuses to disclose who got P2.2 billion in piggery loans last year from state-owned Quedancor. The stand is not surprising, since the Arroyo admin has always been opaque anyway in financial dealings. What will astound Filipinos is if the executive suddenly turned truthful.
Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol is so adept at it that he can look people straight in the eye while uttering his spiel. As rural lender, he claims, Quedancor operates like a bank and so is subject to secrecy laws. Supposedly like in any bank, deposit records may not be disclosed except on court order. “Quedancor would be liable to the borrowers if it publishes their names without their permission,” he fibs.
One begins to suspect the reason Apostol is twisting the facts is that he needs to hide something. Like, he or a kin is a recipient of a behest loan from Quedancor. Why else would he strive to fool people into believing the agency is a bank, when it’s a mere conduit of rural credit from real banks like DBP or LBP? Why else would he pretend that Quedancor has any depositor at all who must be kept secret? And why else would he invoke secrecy for liable borrowers of government money?
Does Apostol even know the transparency rule of the Constitution, the charter he wanted to “reform” in 2005 via a no-election proviso? Section 28 of Article II (Declaration of Principles and State Policies) clearly states: “Subject to reasonable conditions prescribed by law, the State adopts and implements a policy of full public disclosure of all its transactions involving public interest.” The aim is so plain, save for the fiend who studied the law the better to destroy it.
Full disclosure goes hand in hand with other principles and policies:
• that “sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them” (Sec. 1);
• that “the State recognizes the vital role of communication and information in nation building (Sec. 24); and
• that “the State shall maintain honesty and integrity in the public service and take positive and effective measures against graft and corruption” (Sec. 27).
The truthfulness rule radiates as well from the Bill of Rights (Art. III). Sec. 7 requires: “The right of the people to information on matters of public concern shall be recognized. Access to official records, and to documents, and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, or decisions, as well as to government research data used as basis for policy development, shall be afforded to citizens, subject to such limitations as may be provided by law.”
Apostol is not the law. Neither is his twisted presentation.
But his hiding the truth is not new. Only his method is. The Arroyo admin has employed various other means.
In the “Hello Garci” CD, the tactic was a TV apology. Admitted were unfitting calls by a reelectionist President to her Comelec nominee, but only to conceal graver vote rigging and kidnapping. In the jueteng exposé, bribes were used to make witnesses recant from naming the First Family as vice protectors. The flip-flop lasted only till the hush money ran out, though. In the P782-million fertilizer electioneering scam, agriculture office bagman Jocjoc Bolante was made to flee to
In the NBN-ZTE scam, official obfuscation reached new heights. At first DOTC officials kept mum about a $330-million deal whose signing Gloria Arroyo herself witnessed. Then they mumbled they couldn’t show the contract because the only two copies were stolen from a Chinese hotel room moments after the signing. When journalists and telecom competitors urged document disclosure, the officials tried to link them to the concocted theft. They caused the firing of an anti-graft researcher, the wiretapping of whistleblowers, the intimidation of journalists.
As senators persisted in investigating, the entire Cabinet joined the coverup. Some snubbed the hearings by invoking an E.O. 464 that the Supreme Court already had deemed wrong; others blatantly lied under oath. Witnesses were kidnapped or slurred by admin propagandists. They even got justices to declare, against plain Constitutional provisions, that a President’s executive privilege outweighs the people’s right to know. Their justices said further that, although half the Senate stays at the end of each term, it is not a continuing chamber and must thus republish its rules before holding any hearing.
In the wake of that ruling, Malacañang snorted it will no longer send executive officials to Senate inquiries. Obviously it had more things to hide. The Senate was to look into Malacañang’s seismic pact to let
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