ROMULO NERI AND THE NBN SCAM
CHEd chairman and former NEDA director-general Romulo Neri, soft-spoken and frail of build, hardly comes across as one who could cause an uproar. But he has created quite a stir by confirming, in a Senate inquiry, reports that he had been offered a bribe by Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos in connection with a broadband network deal between the Philippine government and China’s ZTE Corp.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 34, September 30-October 6, 2007
Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) chairman and former National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) director-general Romulo Neri, soft-spoken and frail of build, hardly comes across as one who could cause an uproar.
But he has created quite a stir by confirming, in a Senate inquiry, reports that he had been offered a bribe by Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Benjamin Abalos in connection with a National Broadband Network (NBN) deal between the Philippine government and China’s ZTE Corp.
Neri provoked murmurs in the Senate gallery –- despite requests by the members of the Blue Ribbon Committee and the Committee on Trade and Industry that the audience refrain from being “too emotional” –- when he said under oath in a Sept. 26 hearing that Abalos had offered him a bribe amounting to P200 million ($4.44 million based on an exchange rate of $1:P45.04 as of Sept. 28) in connection with the NBN project. “Sec, may 200 ka dito” (Mr. Secretary, you have 200 here), he quoted Abalos as saying to him in a meeting with ZTE officials “late last year or early this year.” What they were talking about was “basically (about) the NBN project,” he said.
A day later, Iloilo Vice Gov. Rolex Suplico filed an impeachment complaint at the House of Representatives against Abalos. Representatives have reportedly crossed party lines to support the complaint; what remains to be seen is whether it would get the minimum number of votes required by the Constitution (1/3 of the House membership) for it to be transmitted to the Senate.
The NBN project is a $329-million contract that aims to connect government agencies throughout the Philippines through the Internet.
The deal was signed in Boao, China on April 21 –- when the government was not allowed to sign contracts because of the then-upcoming senatorial and local elections. It has become controversial for allegedly being overpriced and for supposedly having been signed without going through the proper bidding process.
Jose de Venecia III, son of House Speaker Jose de Venecia and co-founder of Amsterdam Holdings, Inc. which is one of the losing bidders in the NBN deal, has accused Abalos of offering him $10 million in exchange for backing out of the NBN deal – an accusation the Comelec chief has denied.
In a privileged speech on Aug. 29, Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla said it was Abalos who brokered the deal between the Philippine government and ZTE Corp. Padilla also said Abalos was seen playing golf with ZTE officials in Manila and Shenzen. He also accused Abalos of receiving money and women in exchange for brokering the NBN deal.
As controversy built up over the NBN deal, reports also went rife that Abalos had bribed or tried to bribe a number of government officials –- including Neri –- in exchange for approving or supporting the approval of the project.
In the Sept. 26 Senate hearing, Neri confirmed under oath reports that Abalos had indeed tried to offer him a P200-million peso bribe.
With this, he has caused quite an uproar, and many are now clamoring for Abalos’ head to roll.
There are those who wouldn’t stop at Abalos’ doorstep, and are also bent on unearthing the possible involvement of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband Mike Arroyo in the deal.
Neri had also said at the Senate inquiry that he reported Abalos’ bribe offer, which as he said took place either “late last year or early this year,” to the President. “Don’t accept it,” he quoted the President as saying –- and refused to say more about their conversations on the NBN deal, invoking executive privilege.
As is well known, the project got approved and was only recently suspended by Malacañang. Abalos, meanwhile, got to stay on in his post, presiding over the 2007 senatorial and local elections which were marred by allegations of massive fraud, and is only set to retire as Comelec chief in February next year –- that is, if the outrage provoked by Neri’s revelation does not force him out earlier.
The man who has caused such a stir was born on Feb. 1, 1950. After high school at the Ateneo de Manila University, where among other things he won a National Science Development Board (NSDB) Gold Medal for Physical Chemistry, he took BS Business Administration at the University of the Philippines (UP), where he was a University Scholar for eight semesters. He graduated as class valedictorian and magna cum laude in 1970.
That same year he went back to the UP College of Business Administration to work as an instructor, a job he held until 1971.
The year 1971 was, for Neri, the start of a corporate career spanning several years. From 1971 to 1977 he held various management positions in Riverside Mills Corp., Mobil Oil Philippines, Luzon Stevedoring Corp., and the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC).
He enrolled at the MBA program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1977 and earned his degree two years later.
He returned to the country the same year he completed his MBA, and worked until 1985 for CJ Yulo and Sons, Inc.
From 1986 to 1990, he was a professor at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM).
In 1990, he was appointed director-general of the Congressional Budget and Planning Office (CBPO) –- a post he held until 2002, when Arroyo took him in as NEDA director-general.
During his stint at the CBPO –- his longest in any single government post so far –- he became closely associated with the elder De Venecia, who has served several terms as House Speaker. He is reported to have been appointed to the post of NEDA director-general upon the elder De Venecia’s recommendation.
In July 2005, he was appointed to head the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) after then Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin resigned along with other cabinet officials who were part of the group now known as the Hyatt 10 over the surfacing of the so-called “Hello Garci” tapes.
The “Hello Garci” tapes were a series of recorded telephone conversations in which a voice similar to Arroyo’s is heard instructing an election official –- widely believed to be former Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano –- to rig the 2004 elections.
The surfacing of the “Hello Garci” tapes provoked calls for Arroyo’s resignation or removal from office, but Neri stood by the President through the controversy. He was made to head the DBM after the Hyatt 10’s resignation, and stayed at that post until he was transferred back to NEDA following Rolando Andaya’s appointment as budget secretary in February 2006.
Last July he was temporarily transferred to CHEd. Media reports have speculated that his transfer had something to do with his disputing the 6.2-percent growth figure projected by Malacañang as the target for 2008. But Suplico, for his part, opined that his transfer may have been connected to the NBN deal –- something which Neri said at the Sept. 26 hearing was something he thought unlikely.
A little over two months after his transfer to CHEd, Neri creates an uproar with the revelation that Abalos had offered him a P200-million peso bribe in relation to the NBN project. Right now it remains to be seen whether or not he would eventually spill the beans on the possible involvement of the Arroyo couple in the controversial contract. Bulatlat
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
WORKERS’ PLIGHT WORSENING
Thirty-five years after the declaration of martial law, 34 years after the first workers’ protests under martial law, and 21 years after the ouster of Marcos -– the state of workers’ rights demonstrates a greater need for worker militancy.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 33, September 23-29, 2007
The organized labor movement was one of the forces that proved to be instrumental in breaking the climate of fear that was created when then President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972.
Marcos’ imposition of Proclamation No. 1081 was a response to a socio-political turmoil that was shaking the land. The tumult had its immediate origins in historical developments that took place before Marcos assumed his first term in 1965.
As historian-economist Ricco Alejandro M. Santos wrote in a 2003 article for Bulatlat:
“Instructed by the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the elder Macapagal in 1961 instituted decontrol – the free inflow of imports through tariff reductions, and the free repatriation of dollar profits by foreign investors. This first policy measure of Macapagal set the Philippine economy into a tailspin, wiping out more than 10,000 businesses, and creating even greater poverty. Decontrol tightened the (neocolonization) of the economy, and whatever small gains were achieved in Filipino industrialization during the period of import and exchange controls.”
The conditions that this development generated were filling up the streets with protesters –- workers, peasants, students and intellectuals, and even sections of the business community.
Marcos assumed his first presidential term in 1965 amid a nascent political ferment. During his second term (starting 1969), nationalist dissent found its way into the corridors of the political establishment. Santos cites three major nationalist developments in the period 1969-1972:
“In 1969, Congress under pressure from a growing anti-imperialist public opinion, passed a Magna Carta that call(ed) for national industrialization against the dictates of the IMF. Then from 1971 to 1972, nationalists were gaining ground in gathering support for an anti-imperialist agenda in the Constitutional Convention. In 1972, the Supreme Court (SC) issued two decisions unfavorable to the foreign monopolist corporations: one, in the Quasha case, which nullified all sales of private lands to American citizens after 1945, and (an)other rolled back oil price hikes by the oil cartel.”
Martial law
Marcos’ very first act after the issuance of Proclamation No. 1081 was a reversal of the Quasha case. A report by the U.S. Congress would later admit that the martial law period was a time for the granting of greater privileges to foreign investments.
In 1973, a U.S. official visited the Philippines, and congratulated Marcos for his “adherence to democracy.”
The attack on civil liberties was the Marcos regime’s way of dealing with the movements for sovereignty and social justice.
The imposition of martial law on Sept. 21, 1972 had the initial effect of silencing the voices of protest.
By 1974, however, the protest movement was beginning to make its presence felt again, through a series of small strikes by workers’ organizations.
In 1975, the La Tondeña workers -– backed by church workers, among them Fr. Luis Jalandoni –- would stage the first major strike under the martial law regime. That strike dealt a strong blow to the atmosphere of terror created by Proclamation No. 1081.
Thirty-five years after the declaration of martial law, 33 years after the first workers’ protests under martial law, and 21 years after the ouster of Marcos – how are workers’ rights faring in the country?
Art. XIII, Sec. 3 of the Constitution provides that:
“The State shall afford full protection to labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all.
“It shall guarantee the rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations, and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike in accordance with law. They shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage. They shall also participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law.
“The State shall promote the principle of shared responsibility between workers and employers and the preferential use of voluntary modes in settling disputes, including conciliation, and shall enforce their mutual compliance therewith to foster industrial peace.
“The State shall regulate the relations between workers and employers, recognizing the right of labor to its just share in the fruits of production and the right of enterprises to reasonable returns to investments, and to expansion and growth.”
However, statistics from both government offices and non-government organizations show that workers’ rights have not been faring well in the last six years.
Unions and union rights violations
There was a sharp slide in union membership from 2001 –- when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted to power through a popular uprising -– to 2002. Union membership decreased in the said period from 3.85 million to only 1.47 million. The number of union members decreased by almost half from 2001 to 2002.
From 2002 to 2005, there seems to be an encouraging picture of union membership, as there was an increase from 1.47 million to 1.91 million. What appears to be an upward trend would be broken again in 2006, with union membership decreasing to 1.86 million. From 2006 to March 2007 union membership would rise to 1.87 million.
As of March 2007, union membership in the Philippines has yet to reach even the 2-million mark since 2001.
The sorry state of union membership in the country is even more glaring when compared to the labor force of 54.98 million as of April 2007. This means that only .03 percent of the labor force is organized. This does not bode well for the defense of workers’ rights. Without a union, workers’ rights are easily violated. The prevalent practice of contractualization and non-regularization of workers are the main causes of the decline in union membership.
Those in the unions, in turn, still suffer the added atrocities of violence and harassment.
Based on data from the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR), a non-government organization, there were a total of 1,114 violations of union and human rights from 2001 to 2006. These include assaults on picket lines, illegal arrest and detention, torture, killing, grave threats, and forced disappearances.
Workers are among the numerous victims of extra-judicial killings under the Arroyo administration. CTUHR’s data place the number of workers extra-judicially killed at 83 from 2001 to 2006. As in cases involving victims from other sectors, state forces were found to have been the perpetrators in majority of the killings of workers.
The number of victims of these union and human rights violations total 13,794 from 2001 to 2006, CTUHR data further show.
Economic rights
Meanwhile, the economic rights of workers are hardly doing any better.
Based on data from the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC), the family living wage for a family of six -– the average Filipino family –- stands at a national average of P701.8 ($15.38 based on the average exchange rate of $1:P45.62 as of July 2007).
Conversely, the highest regional minimum wage -– which is “enjoyed” in the National Capital Region (NCR) –- stands at only P325-362 ($7.63-7.94) daily. The biggest gap between the family living wage and the minimum wage is to be found in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), with a family living wage of P1,074 ($23.54) as against a minimum wage of only P200 ($4.38) daily.
Militancy
Workers contributed in no small measure to breaking the climate of fear created by the imposition of martial law in 1972.
Thirty-five years after the declaration of martial law, 34 years after the first workers’ protests under martial law, and 21 years after the ouster of Marcos –- the state of workers’ rights demonstrates the need for greater worker militancy.
Thirty-five years after the declaration of martial law, 34 years after the first workers’ protests under martial law, and 21 years after the ouster of Marcos -– the state of workers’ rights demonstrates a greater need for worker militancy.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 33, September 23-29, 2007
The organized labor movement was one of the forces that proved to be instrumental in breaking the climate of fear that was created when then President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972.
Marcos’ imposition of Proclamation No. 1081 was a response to a socio-political turmoil that was shaking the land. The tumult had its immediate origins in historical developments that took place before Marcos assumed his first term in 1965.
As historian-economist Ricco Alejandro M. Santos wrote in a 2003 article for Bulatlat:
“Instructed by the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the elder Macapagal in 1961 instituted decontrol – the free inflow of imports through tariff reductions, and the free repatriation of dollar profits by foreign investors. This first policy measure of Macapagal set the Philippine economy into a tailspin, wiping out more than 10,000 businesses, and creating even greater poverty. Decontrol tightened the (neocolonization) of the economy, and whatever small gains were achieved in Filipino industrialization during the period of import and exchange controls.”
The conditions that this development generated were filling up the streets with protesters –- workers, peasants, students and intellectuals, and even sections of the business community.
Marcos assumed his first presidential term in 1965 amid a nascent political ferment. During his second term (starting 1969), nationalist dissent found its way into the corridors of the political establishment. Santos cites three major nationalist developments in the period 1969-1972:
“In 1969, Congress under pressure from a growing anti-imperialist public opinion, passed a Magna Carta that call(ed) for national industrialization against the dictates of the IMF. Then from 1971 to 1972, nationalists were gaining ground in gathering support for an anti-imperialist agenda in the Constitutional Convention. In 1972, the Supreme Court (SC) issued two decisions unfavorable to the foreign monopolist corporations: one, in the Quasha case, which nullified all sales of private lands to American citizens after 1945, and (an)other rolled back oil price hikes by the oil cartel.”
Martial law
Marcos’ very first act after the issuance of Proclamation No. 1081 was a reversal of the Quasha case. A report by the U.S. Congress would later admit that the martial law period was a time for the granting of greater privileges to foreign investments.
In 1973, a U.S. official visited the Philippines, and congratulated Marcos for his “adherence to democracy.”
The attack on civil liberties was the Marcos regime’s way of dealing with the movements for sovereignty and social justice.
The imposition of martial law on Sept. 21, 1972 had the initial effect of silencing the voices of protest.
By 1974, however, the protest movement was beginning to make its presence felt again, through a series of small strikes by workers’ organizations.
In 1975, the La Tondeña workers -– backed by church workers, among them Fr. Luis Jalandoni –- would stage the first major strike under the martial law regime. That strike dealt a strong blow to the atmosphere of terror created by Proclamation No. 1081.
Thirty-five years after the declaration of martial law, 33 years after the first workers’ protests under martial law, and 21 years after the ouster of Marcos – how are workers’ rights faring in the country?
Art. XIII, Sec. 3 of the Constitution provides that:
“The State shall afford full protection to labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all.
“It shall guarantee the rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations, and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike in accordance with law. They shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage. They shall also participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law.
“The State shall promote the principle of shared responsibility between workers and employers and the preferential use of voluntary modes in settling disputes, including conciliation, and shall enforce their mutual compliance therewith to foster industrial peace.
“The State shall regulate the relations between workers and employers, recognizing the right of labor to its just share in the fruits of production and the right of enterprises to reasonable returns to investments, and to expansion and growth.”
However, statistics from both government offices and non-government organizations show that workers’ rights have not been faring well in the last six years.
Unions and union rights violations
There was a sharp slide in union membership from 2001 –- when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted to power through a popular uprising -– to 2002. Union membership decreased in the said period from 3.85 million to only 1.47 million. The number of union members decreased by almost half from 2001 to 2002.
From 2002 to 2005, there seems to be an encouraging picture of union membership, as there was an increase from 1.47 million to 1.91 million. What appears to be an upward trend would be broken again in 2006, with union membership decreasing to 1.86 million. From 2006 to March 2007 union membership would rise to 1.87 million.
As of March 2007, union membership in the Philippines has yet to reach even the 2-million mark since 2001.
The sorry state of union membership in the country is even more glaring when compared to the labor force of 54.98 million as of April 2007. This means that only .03 percent of the labor force is organized. This does not bode well for the defense of workers’ rights. Without a union, workers’ rights are easily violated. The prevalent practice of contractualization and non-regularization of workers are the main causes of the decline in union membership.
Those in the unions, in turn, still suffer the added atrocities of violence and harassment.
Based on data from the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR), a non-government organization, there were a total of 1,114 violations of union and human rights from 2001 to 2006. These include assaults on picket lines, illegal arrest and detention, torture, killing, grave threats, and forced disappearances.
Workers are among the numerous victims of extra-judicial killings under the Arroyo administration. CTUHR’s data place the number of workers extra-judicially killed at 83 from 2001 to 2006. As in cases involving victims from other sectors, state forces were found to have been the perpetrators in majority of the killings of workers.
The number of victims of these union and human rights violations total 13,794 from 2001 to 2006, CTUHR data further show.
Economic rights
Meanwhile, the economic rights of workers are hardly doing any better.
Based on data from the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC), the family living wage for a family of six -– the average Filipino family –- stands at a national average of P701.8 ($15.38 based on the average exchange rate of $1:P45.62 as of July 2007).
Conversely, the highest regional minimum wage -– which is “enjoyed” in the National Capital Region (NCR) –- stands at only P325-362 ($7.63-7.94) daily. The biggest gap between the family living wage and the minimum wage is to be found in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), with a family living wage of P1,074 ($23.54) as against a minimum wage of only P200 ($4.38) daily.
Militancy
Workers contributed in no small measure to breaking the climate of fear created by the imposition of martial law in 1972.
Thirty-five years after the declaration of martial law, 34 years after the first workers’ protests under martial law, and 21 years after the ouster of Marcos –- the state of workers’ rights demonstrates the need for greater worker militancy.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
BENJAMIN ABALOS: A LEGACY OF CONTROVERSY?
Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos, Sr. is now in what may well be described as the “legacy phase” of his stint as an election official, and quite possibly his entire career as a government official. Set to retire from the Comelec in February next year, he has said he does not want to leave a legacy of controversy. But a legacy of controversy is what he appears to be leaving.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 32, September 16-22, 2007
Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Benjamin Abalos, Sr. is now in what may well be described as the “legacy phase” of his stint as an election official, and quite possibly his entire career as a government official. Set to retire from the Comelec in February next year, he has said he does not want to leave a legacy of controversy.
But a legacy of controversy is what he appears to be leaving. In particular, his stint as Comelec chairman seems to be one of hopping from one controversy to another.
The National Broadband Network (NBN) contract between the Philippine government and China’s ZTE Corp. is not the least of these.
The NBN project is a $329-million contract that aims to connect government agencies throughout the Philippines through the Internet.
The deal was signed in Boao, China on April 21 –- when the government was not allowed to sign contracts because of the then-upcoming senatorial and local elections. It has become controversial for allegedly being overpriced and for supposedly having been signed without going through the proper bidding process.
Jose de Venecia III, co-founder of Amsterdam Holdings, Inc. which is one of the losing bidders in the NBN deal, has accused Abalos of offering him $10 million in exchange for backing out of the NBN deal – an accusation the Comelec chief has denied.
In a privileged speech on Aug. 29, Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla said it was Abalos who brokered the deal between the Philippine government and ZTE Corp. Padilla also said Abalos was seen playing golf with ZTE officials in Manila and Shenzen. He also accused Abalos of receiving money and women in exchange for brokering the NBN deal.
Abalos has denied being the conduit for the NBN deal. He has also denied receiving money and women from ZTE executives.
However, he has admitted that some of the ZTE honchos were his “golfing buddies.” He has likewise disclosed that ZTE officials paid for his trips to China.
He has also admitted that his daughter Girlie, who runs a company that imports goods from China, is a friend of some ZTE executives.
The NBN controversy seems poised to cap what could be a government stint of more than 40 years for Abalos.
Working up the ladder of bureaucracy
The Comelec chief claims to have been born into a poor family in Pangasinan on Sept. 21, 1935. A 1957 law graduate of the Manuel L. Quezon University (MLQU), Abalos claims to have supported himself through college by working as a janitor, factory worker, and a caddy at the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club.
In 1963, Abalos ran for vice mayor of Mandaluyong, which was then part of Rizal. He lost to the scion of a political family in what he alleges to have been a fraud-ridden local election.
For the next several years he served as judge. While his record as judge is not associated with any monumental legal feat, he loves talking of how he was named as outstanding judge for 10 straight years.
In the course of his career as judge, he would meet and forge a partnership with Neptali Gonzalez, an opposition leader at that time who would eventually become Senate President.
He ran for Mandaluyong mayor in 1980. He claims to have won in the count, but says he was unable to assume his post. This, he says, is because the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos prevented him from serving as mayor.
In 1986, shortly after Marcos was ousted through a popular uprising, President Corazon Aquino appointed him as Officer-in-Charge (OIC) mayor of Mandaluyong.
He ran for Mandaluyong mayor and won in the local elections of 1988, the first local elections under the 1987 Constitution. He ran for the same post and won in the elections of 1992, 1995, and 1998 –- using up the constitutionally-mandated limit of three consecutive terms for local officials.
Up to 1991, Abalos was an active member of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), when he and others in a group led by Gonzalez split over Senate leadership rivalries with Sen. Edgardo Angara. He became part of the Lakas-National Union of Christian Democrats (Lakas-NUCD), which fielded former Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos in the 1992 presidential elections.
In 2001 Abalos was appointed chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), a post he held until the following year. He takes pride in the cleanliness drive he implemented as MMDA chairman.
Comelec
Abalos was appointed Comelec chairman in 2002, even as he was then a very visible leader of the Lakas-NUCD.
In February 2003, the Comelec opened a bidding process for a poll automation scheme with an approved budget of P2.5 billion ($44.48 million based on the year’s $1:P56.20 average exchange rate). Two companies –- Mega Pacific eSolutions, Inc. (MPEI) and Total Information Management Corp. (TIMC) -- fought it out in the bidding process. MPEI won with a bid of P1.2 billion ($21.35 million), P1 million lower than TIMC’s bid.
Under the deal, MPEI was to supply the Comelec with 1,191 automated counting machines to be used in the 2004 elections.
However, the contract was shortly after found to have been fraught with legal infirmities: among other things, the Comelec had awarded the contract to Mega Pacific Consortium – an entity that had not participated in the bidding process –- and MPEI did not meet eligibility requirements. The deal was thumbed down by the Supreme Court.
Abalos would court more controversy by presiding over the 2004 and 2007 elections, which were both marred by allegations of widespread fraud.
In both polls, the Comelec shied away from taking appropriate measures against two notorious electoral fraud suspects –- Virgilio Garcillano and Lintang Bedol. Abalos even defended the two election officials against their accusers without so much as the benefit of any investigation into allegations of poll fraud.
Later in 2007, Abalos finds himself accused of brokering an onerous deal between the Philippine government and China’s ZTE Corp. for an NBN project.
This controversy comes for Abalos just a few months before his retirement from his post as Comelec chairman. Bulatlat
Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos, Sr. is now in what may well be described as the “legacy phase” of his stint as an election official, and quite possibly his entire career as a government official. Set to retire from the Comelec in February next year, he has said he does not want to leave a legacy of controversy. But a legacy of controversy is what he appears to be leaving.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 32, September 16-22, 2007
Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Benjamin Abalos, Sr. is now in what may well be described as the “legacy phase” of his stint as an election official, and quite possibly his entire career as a government official. Set to retire from the Comelec in February next year, he has said he does not want to leave a legacy of controversy.
But a legacy of controversy is what he appears to be leaving. In particular, his stint as Comelec chairman seems to be one of hopping from one controversy to another.
The National Broadband Network (NBN) contract between the Philippine government and China’s ZTE Corp. is not the least of these.
The NBN project is a $329-million contract that aims to connect government agencies throughout the Philippines through the Internet.
The deal was signed in Boao, China on April 21 –- when the government was not allowed to sign contracts because of the then-upcoming senatorial and local elections. It has become controversial for allegedly being overpriced and for supposedly having been signed without going through the proper bidding process.
Jose de Venecia III, co-founder of Amsterdam Holdings, Inc. which is one of the losing bidders in the NBN deal, has accused Abalos of offering him $10 million in exchange for backing out of the NBN deal – an accusation the Comelec chief has denied.
In a privileged speech on Aug. 29, Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla said it was Abalos who brokered the deal between the Philippine government and ZTE Corp. Padilla also said Abalos was seen playing golf with ZTE officials in Manila and Shenzen. He also accused Abalos of receiving money and women in exchange for brokering the NBN deal.
Abalos has denied being the conduit for the NBN deal. He has also denied receiving money and women from ZTE executives.
However, he has admitted that some of the ZTE honchos were his “golfing buddies.” He has likewise disclosed that ZTE officials paid for his trips to China.
He has also admitted that his daughter Girlie, who runs a company that imports goods from China, is a friend of some ZTE executives.
The NBN controversy seems poised to cap what could be a government stint of more than 40 years for Abalos.
Working up the ladder of bureaucracy
The Comelec chief claims to have been born into a poor family in Pangasinan on Sept. 21, 1935. A 1957 law graduate of the Manuel L. Quezon University (MLQU), Abalos claims to have supported himself through college by working as a janitor, factory worker, and a caddy at the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club.
In 1963, Abalos ran for vice mayor of Mandaluyong, which was then part of Rizal. He lost to the scion of a political family in what he alleges to have been a fraud-ridden local election.
For the next several years he served as judge. While his record as judge is not associated with any monumental legal feat, he loves talking of how he was named as outstanding judge for 10 straight years.
In the course of his career as judge, he would meet and forge a partnership with Neptali Gonzalez, an opposition leader at that time who would eventually become Senate President.
He ran for Mandaluyong mayor in 1980. He claims to have won in the count, but says he was unable to assume his post. This, he says, is because the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos prevented him from serving as mayor.
In 1986, shortly after Marcos was ousted through a popular uprising, President Corazon Aquino appointed him as Officer-in-Charge (OIC) mayor of Mandaluyong.
He ran for Mandaluyong mayor and won in the local elections of 1988, the first local elections under the 1987 Constitution. He ran for the same post and won in the elections of 1992, 1995, and 1998 –- using up the constitutionally-mandated limit of three consecutive terms for local officials.
Up to 1991, Abalos was an active member of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), when he and others in a group led by Gonzalez split over Senate leadership rivalries with Sen. Edgardo Angara. He became part of the Lakas-National Union of Christian Democrats (Lakas-NUCD), which fielded former Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos in the 1992 presidential elections.
In 2001 Abalos was appointed chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), a post he held until the following year. He takes pride in the cleanliness drive he implemented as MMDA chairman.
Comelec
Abalos was appointed Comelec chairman in 2002, even as he was then a very visible leader of the Lakas-NUCD.
In February 2003, the Comelec opened a bidding process for a poll automation scheme with an approved budget of P2.5 billion ($44.48 million based on the year’s $1:P56.20 average exchange rate). Two companies –- Mega Pacific eSolutions, Inc. (MPEI) and Total Information Management Corp. (TIMC) -- fought it out in the bidding process. MPEI won with a bid of P1.2 billion ($21.35 million), P1 million lower than TIMC’s bid.
Under the deal, MPEI was to supply the Comelec with 1,191 automated counting machines to be used in the 2004 elections.
However, the contract was shortly after found to have been fraught with legal infirmities: among other things, the Comelec had awarded the contract to Mega Pacific Consortium – an entity that had not participated in the bidding process –- and MPEI did not meet eligibility requirements. The deal was thumbed down by the Supreme Court.
Abalos would court more controversy by presiding over the 2004 and 2007 elections, which were both marred by allegations of widespread fraud.
In both polls, the Comelec shied away from taking appropriate measures against two notorious electoral fraud suspects –- Virgilio Garcillano and Lintang Bedol. Abalos even defended the two election officials against their accusers without so much as the benefit of any investigation into allegations of poll fraud.
Later in 2007, Abalos finds himself accused of brokering an onerous deal between the Philippine government and China’s ZTE Corp. for an NBN project.
This controversy comes for Abalos just a few months before his retirement from his post as Comelec chairman. Bulatlat
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
DUTCH-PHILIPPINE RELATIONS: THE TIES THAT BIND
The arrest of NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison by Dutch police has brought attention to Dutch interests in the country.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 31, September 9-15, 2007
The arrest of NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison by Dutch police, purportedly to enforce a special law in The Netherlands, for allegedly ordering the killings of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara in the Philippines, has brought attention to Dutch interests in the country.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry, said Sison’s counsel Jan Fermon, admitted in its website that the inclusion of the CPP-NPA and Sison in its list of terrorists was done to comply with the request of the U.S. government. It likewise stated that the 150 Dutch companies have investments in the Philippines and that Holland is one of the major investors now in the country. It added that the only burden in the relationship between Holland and the Philippines is the presence of what they called the Communist leadership in Utrecht.
The Philippines is the main U.S. ally in Southeast Asia, while the Netherlands places second to the United Kingdom in being a major U.S. ally in Europe. The U.S. was the first to include the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) and Sison in its terrorist list. The Dutch government followed suit and it even supported the inclusion of Sison in the European Union list of “foreign terrorists” in 2002.
Sison is known as the founding chairman of the CPP. In 1968 he led a group that broke away from the leadership of the Lava brothers in the old Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) and re-established the CPP.
Under Sison’s leadership, the CPP rapidly gained strength and together with the NPA, its armed component, it developed into one of the strongest organized forces opposed to the U.S.-Marcos regime during the martial law years.
He was the CPP’s highest-ranking leader from its reestablishment until he was arrested by the Marcos dictatorship in 1977.
Released in 1986 by virtue of then President Corazon Aquino’s general amnesty proclamation for political prisoners, Sison got involved in a number of legal political activities and even delivered a series of lectures at his alma mater, the University of the Philippines (UP).
In 1988, he found himself having to apply for political asylum after the Aquino government cancelled his passport while he was in Europe on a speaking tour. He has since lived in the Netherlands as an asylum seeker.
In 2002, the CPP-NPA was included by the U.S. Department of State in its list of “foreign terrorist organizations.” Sison was also listed as a “foreign terrorist.” The Dutch government listed the CPP-NPA and Sison in its own terror list a day after the U.S. listing. The Council of the European Union followed suit later that year.
On May 29, the Council of the European Union decided to retain Sison in its “terrorist” list. This decision was annulled by the July 11 verdict of the European Court of First Instance (ECFI).
On Aug. 28, Sison was arrested by Dutch police in Utrecht for allegedly ordering the murders of former CPP-NPA leaders Kintanar and Tabara in 2003 and 2004, respectively.
Sison’s arrest has placed focus on the ties between the Philippine and Dutch governments and the U.S., and Dutch business interests in the Philippines.
Based on information from the office of Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) Rep. Crispin Beltran, for instance, the Arroyo administraton has recently approved an oil exploration project by Dutch, U.S. and British companies covering about a million hectares of agricultural and fishing areas in the Bicol region. In early August, Beltran said, the Dutch company Premier Oil secured permission to drill an exploration well within Service Contract 43 in Ragay Gulf, and has in fact earmarked some $3.6-9.6 million for the said project.
The Philippines is The Netherlands’ third major trading partner among Asian countries, Beltran also said.
“The language barrier is not present in the Philippines as a location for offshore work,” explains Brian Altman, managing director of the Dutch IT service firm IAMD Software Solutions which operates in the Philippines, on why the country has been emerging as a favorite base for offshore operations among European companies. “Everybody speaks English. Furthermore, the Philippines has an abundance of highly skilled and very creative people that are not afraid to work hard at very low costs compared to the West.”
The Dutch software company started out as a small freelance Web development company specializing in travel packages for a hotel/resort portal devoted to traveling in the Philippines. Later on it tapped into local companies’ online needs.
IAMD’s major local client is the SM chain of malls and department stores, which is owned by Henry Sy. SM relies on IAMD for online transactions and website maintenance.
Premier Oil and IAMD Software Solutions are among some 30 Dutch companies now operating in the Philippines.
The largest among these Dutch business interests in the Philippines are in the outsourced business processes. These include Getronics, the ING Group, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and the Bickers Group of Companies –- Bickers Law Firm, Bickers Corporate and Bickers Public Solutions.
Getronics is an information and communication technology (ICT) service provider for corporations. It integrates and manages ICT systems for several Dutch and global companies and organizations.
The ING Group is a global financial services company claiming to be one of the 20 largest financial institutions worldwide. It provides banking, insurance and asset management services.
The Bickers Group of Companies provides legal, government liaising, and trade-related services to European companies with business interests in Europe and Southeast Asia. Its base of operations in Asia is located in Cebu, the company’s first satellite office outside The Netherlands.
Beyond the outsourced business processes, Dutch companies in the Philippines have large business ventures in food, home, and personal care products; the oil industry; petroleum trading, oil and gas exploration; solar energy, electronics, banking, insurance, coco coir export, and wholesale trade.
The Royal Dutch Shell is one of the “Big Three” multinational oil industry players in the Philippines and the world. It was ranked this year by Fortune magazine as the third largest corporation in the world, behind Wal-Mart and ExxonMobil.
Aside from gasoline and diesel, Shell also produces car and motorcycle oils like Shell Helix for cars and Shell Advance for motorcycles. Shell also produces the Shellane brand of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Its solar energy company, Shell Solar, piloted a sunstation in Aklan and recently completed a feasibility study for establishing and operating sunstations in Palawan.
Shell is involved in oil and gas explorations in Camago and Malampaya fields, which are located not more than 200 nautical miles off the coast of Palawan.
The Vitol Group provides oil trading and marketing services for upstream producers and downstream retailers. It is also involved in oil and gas exploration.
In the food, home and personal care products business Unilever is easily one of the most prominent in the Philippines. Unilever is a multinational company of Anglo-Dutch parentage. It is associated with several brand-name products: Knorr, Becel/Flora, Bertolli, Lipton, Blue Band, Rama, Country Crock, Doriana, Heartbrand, Hellman’s, Amora, Calvé, Wish-Bone, Slim·Fast, Cif, Comfort, Domestos, Omo, Radiant, Sunlight, Surf, Axe, Dove, Lifebuoy, Lux, Rexona, Pond’s, Signal, Close Up, Sunsilk, and Vaseline.
In wholesale trade, Makro is one of the giants in the Philippines. Established in the Philippines in 1995, Pilipinas Makro is a partnership between the Dutch SHV Holdings N.V and SM Prime Investments of the Sy Group of Companies. Its clients in the Philippines include hotels, restaurants, caterers, and sari-sari (variety) store owners.
Other Dutch companies with interests in the Philippines are Philips (electronics), ABN-AMRO (banking), and Rinos N.-V Corion (coco coir export). Bulatlat
The arrest of NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison by Dutch police has brought attention to Dutch interests in the country.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 31, September 9-15, 2007
The arrest of NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison by Dutch police, purportedly to enforce a special law in The Netherlands, for allegedly ordering the killings of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara in the Philippines, has brought attention to Dutch interests in the country.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry, said Sison’s counsel Jan Fermon, admitted in its website that the inclusion of the CPP-NPA and Sison in its list of terrorists was done to comply with the request of the U.S. government. It likewise stated that the 150 Dutch companies have investments in the Philippines and that Holland is one of the major investors now in the country. It added that the only burden in the relationship between Holland and the Philippines is the presence of what they called the Communist leadership in Utrecht.
The Philippines is the main U.S. ally in Southeast Asia, while the Netherlands places second to the United Kingdom in being a major U.S. ally in Europe. The U.S. was the first to include the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) and Sison in its terrorist list. The Dutch government followed suit and it even supported the inclusion of Sison in the European Union list of “foreign terrorists” in 2002.
Sison is known as the founding chairman of the CPP. In 1968 he led a group that broke away from the leadership of the Lava brothers in the old Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) and re-established the CPP.
Under Sison’s leadership, the CPP rapidly gained strength and together with the NPA, its armed component, it developed into one of the strongest organized forces opposed to the U.S.-Marcos regime during the martial law years.
He was the CPP’s highest-ranking leader from its reestablishment until he was arrested by the Marcos dictatorship in 1977.
Released in 1986 by virtue of then President Corazon Aquino’s general amnesty proclamation for political prisoners, Sison got involved in a number of legal political activities and even delivered a series of lectures at his alma mater, the University of the Philippines (UP).
In 1988, he found himself having to apply for political asylum after the Aquino government cancelled his passport while he was in Europe on a speaking tour. He has since lived in the Netherlands as an asylum seeker.
In 2002, the CPP-NPA was included by the U.S. Department of State in its list of “foreign terrorist organizations.” Sison was also listed as a “foreign terrorist.” The Dutch government listed the CPP-NPA and Sison in its own terror list a day after the U.S. listing. The Council of the European Union followed suit later that year.
On May 29, the Council of the European Union decided to retain Sison in its “terrorist” list. This decision was annulled by the July 11 verdict of the European Court of First Instance (ECFI).
On Aug. 28, Sison was arrested by Dutch police in Utrecht for allegedly ordering the murders of former CPP-NPA leaders Kintanar and Tabara in 2003 and 2004, respectively.
Sison’s arrest has placed focus on the ties between the Philippine and Dutch governments and the U.S., and Dutch business interests in the Philippines.
Based on information from the office of Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) Rep. Crispin Beltran, for instance, the Arroyo administraton has recently approved an oil exploration project by Dutch, U.S. and British companies covering about a million hectares of agricultural and fishing areas in the Bicol region. In early August, Beltran said, the Dutch company Premier Oil secured permission to drill an exploration well within Service Contract 43 in Ragay Gulf, and has in fact earmarked some $3.6-9.6 million for the said project.
The Philippines is The Netherlands’ third major trading partner among Asian countries, Beltran also said.
“The language barrier is not present in the Philippines as a location for offshore work,” explains Brian Altman, managing director of the Dutch IT service firm IAMD Software Solutions which operates in the Philippines, on why the country has been emerging as a favorite base for offshore operations among European companies. “Everybody speaks English. Furthermore, the Philippines has an abundance of highly skilled and very creative people that are not afraid to work hard at very low costs compared to the West.”
The Dutch software company started out as a small freelance Web development company specializing in travel packages for a hotel/resort portal devoted to traveling in the Philippines. Later on it tapped into local companies’ online needs.
IAMD’s major local client is the SM chain of malls and department stores, which is owned by Henry Sy. SM relies on IAMD for online transactions and website maintenance.
Premier Oil and IAMD Software Solutions are among some 30 Dutch companies now operating in the Philippines.
The largest among these Dutch business interests in the Philippines are in the outsourced business processes. These include Getronics, the ING Group, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and the Bickers Group of Companies –- Bickers Law Firm, Bickers Corporate and Bickers Public Solutions.
Getronics is an information and communication technology (ICT) service provider for corporations. It integrates and manages ICT systems for several Dutch and global companies and organizations.
The ING Group is a global financial services company claiming to be one of the 20 largest financial institutions worldwide. It provides banking, insurance and asset management services.
The Bickers Group of Companies provides legal, government liaising, and trade-related services to European companies with business interests in Europe and Southeast Asia. Its base of operations in Asia is located in Cebu, the company’s first satellite office outside The Netherlands.
Beyond the outsourced business processes, Dutch companies in the Philippines have large business ventures in food, home, and personal care products; the oil industry; petroleum trading, oil and gas exploration; solar energy, electronics, banking, insurance, coco coir export, and wholesale trade.
The Royal Dutch Shell is one of the “Big Three” multinational oil industry players in the Philippines and the world. It was ranked this year by Fortune magazine as the third largest corporation in the world, behind Wal-Mart and ExxonMobil.
Aside from gasoline and diesel, Shell also produces car and motorcycle oils like Shell Helix for cars and Shell Advance for motorcycles. Shell also produces the Shellane brand of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Its solar energy company, Shell Solar, piloted a sunstation in Aklan and recently completed a feasibility study for establishing and operating sunstations in Palawan.
Shell is involved in oil and gas explorations in Camago and Malampaya fields, which are located not more than 200 nautical miles off the coast of Palawan.
The Vitol Group provides oil trading and marketing services for upstream producers and downstream retailers. It is also involved in oil and gas exploration.
In the food, home and personal care products business Unilever is easily one of the most prominent in the Philippines. Unilever is a multinational company of Anglo-Dutch parentage. It is associated with several brand-name products: Knorr, Becel/Flora, Bertolli, Lipton, Blue Band, Rama, Country Crock, Doriana, Heartbrand, Hellman’s, Amora, Calvé, Wish-Bone, Slim·Fast, Cif, Comfort, Domestos, Omo, Radiant, Sunlight, Surf, Axe, Dove, Lifebuoy, Lux, Rexona, Pond’s, Signal, Close Up, Sunsilk, and Vaseline.
In wholesale trade, Makro is one of the giants in the Philippines. Established in the Philippines in 1995, Pilipinas Makro is a partnership between the Dutch SHV Holdings N.V and SM Prime Investments of the Sy Group of Companies. Its clients in the Philippines include hotels, restaurants, caterers, and sari-sari (variety) store owners.
Other Dutch companies with interests in the Philippines are Philips (electronics), ABN-AMRO (banking), and Rinos N.-V Corion (coco coir export). Bulatlat
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