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ATTY. MEL STA. MARIA: The advantage, questions, standard of a Corona testimony
InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
MANILA, Philippines – Billions of pesos spent on public relations and advertisements, including a television program that Senator Jinggoy Estrada said hardly anyone watched, and millions more, given to lawmakers and to the Philippine National Police, that remains unaccounted for.
These were among the latest revelations to emerge from the continued investigation of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee into the alleged misuse of funds by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes under former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
At Monday’s hearing of the committee, current PCSO officials and Commission on Audit chairman Fidel Tan told senators that members of the House of Representatives and the PNP received a cut from the net receipts of operators of the Small Town Lottery, which the government charitable institution grants franchises for.
House members, on the other hand, received 2.5 percent of STL net receipts in their districts through checks issued directly to them by the operators, aside from “endowment funds” from the PCSO itself, PCSO director Aleta Tolentino said.
PCSO general manager Jose Ferdinand Rojas II said because the money received by the lawmakers is taken from the agency’s Charity Fund, it should be liquidated with local COA offices.
But, he said, “only acknowledgement receipts have been submitted to PCSO.”
Rojas promised to submit the list of these lawmakers, some of whom continued to get their share of the STL revenues in 2007 and after.
As for the PNP, Tan said the PCSO allocates 0.5 percent of STL net receipts, all the way down to the regional police offices. But, he added, “no documents (have been) submitted to us to prove that they received the funds.”
This prompted Blue Ribbon committee chairman Senator Teofisto Guingona III to order PNP officials summoned “to explain the use of PCSO funds.”
The PCSO executives also said the agency, then under the chairmanship of Manuel Morato, spent some P7.2 billion for advertisements and promotions from 2005 to 2010, P1.1 billion of this during last year’s elections.
“The former administration … spent P7.2 billion in advertisements and promotion (for) online lottery games from 2005 to 2010. In 2010 alone, the PCSO … spent P1.1 billion from January to July and just P115 million (from) in August to December 2010,” Tolentino told the Blue Ribbon committee.
Tolentino added that only P540 million of the PR allocations remain unpaid.
But when grilled by senators, former PCSO general manager Rosario Uriarte, who approved the disbursements, refused to answer questions, invoking her right against self-incrimination.
Tolentino told the Senate that, aside from TV, radio and print ads, the PCSO also shelled out money to produce “teleseryes,” or television drama series, and the “Dial M” program of Manuel Morato, former chairman of the charitable institution, which aired on government-run NBN Channel 4.
PCSO general manager Ferdinand Rojas confirmed Tolentino’s statement and assured the senators they were implementing reforms to prevent a repeat of such massive PR spending.
Rojas said that the former PCSO board allotted P4.3 million for Morato’s program in 2006, P6.3 million in 2007, P5.7 million in 2008, P5.6 million in 2009, and P4.1 million in 2010.
Senator Franklin Drilon said Morato should be investigated for using his program to campaign for Gilberto Teodoro Jr., the administration presidential candidate who lost to President Benigno Aquino III in last year’s elections.
“It is very clear in my mind that the PR and intelligence funds (from) January to June 201 (were) used for the election. Hindi ko alam kung sino ang pinondohan nun. Basta, si Mr. Morato nangampanya para kay Gibo (I don’t know who benefited from the funds. But what is clear is that Mr. Morato campaigned for Gibo),” Drilon said
He said the Department of Justice and the Commission on Elections should investigate Morato for possible violations of both election laws and the Revised Penal Code.
“Using public funds for the benefit of one candidate is certainly a criminal offense under the law,” Drilon said.
Senator Jinggoy Estrada said public funds had been wasted on Morato’s program which survey results the lawmaker produced at the hearing showed had ratings of 0 to 0.3 percent.
Lawmakers also saw possible conflict of interest in the sale of a hotel by a company owned by Morato to a firm under contract with the government charity at a time when he still sat on its board.
According to Senator Franklin Drilon, TF Ventures Inc., Morato’s company, sold a hotel to Malaysian firm Perdana Lands Philippines Inc. for P785, pocketing P70 million from the transaction.
Perdana owns majority shares in the Philippine Gaming Management Corp., which supplies the PCSO machines used in its lotteries.
“How can you sell this (property to a) company that has an existing contract with the PCSO, (in which) you sat as member of its board?” Drilon asked Morato.
Morato explained that he had no control over the sale since the property was among foreclosed properties sold to Deutsche Bank under the Special Purpose Assets Vehicle Act of 2002.
“Wala po akong kontrol dyan eh, kasi the sale was consummated in … the Makati regional trial court. ‘Di po ako naghanap ng buyer na ‘yan. Sila ang namimii ng mga foreclosed na mga properties … Naunahan nga lang ako dahil may bumibili nyan na doon naman ako kikita (I had no control over that since the sale was consummated in … the Makati regional trial court. I did not look for that buyer. They were the ones who chose the foreclosed properties. They just beat me to it because there was a buyer from whom I would have made money),” Morato said.
He said the P70 million that went to TF Ventures Inc. was intended to pay the company’s stockholders and creditors.
Morato said the loan taken from a local bank to build the hotel ballooned to P1.3 billion from the original P280 million led to the sale of the hotel and the land it was constructed on.
But Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said he believed TF Ventures Inc. declared the P70 million as the sale value of Morato’s property to evade paying the six percent capital gain tax due from the P785 million sale price.
“Mr. Morato, you avoided the paying of capital gain tax of 6 six for selling the land and the hotel for P70 million, but the property was sold to a foreign firm for P785 million,” Enrile said.
For Senator Jinggoy Estrada, “malinaw na (it is clear that there was) conflict of interest; quiet immoral on your part.”
Senator Teofisto Guingona III, who chairs the Blue Ribbon committee, ordered Morato to submit the documents of the sale.
Senator Panfilo Lacon also pounced on Uriarte over the release of P2 million to a nongovernmental organization by her chief of staff that went to the printing of posters urging Arroyo to run in the 2004 presidential elections.
Lacson said Uriarte approved the release of the money to the Gawin Natin Lakas Pinoy Foundtion in 2003. The funds, he said, were used to print posters that said, “Run, Gloria, Run.”
“The money was not used for charity but for posters by an NGO headed by a certain Raul Nestor Ancheta who happened to be your (Uriarte) chief of staff,” Lacson told the former PCSO general manager.
Earlier, Arroyo, who became president through a popular uprising that ousted her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, had promised not to seek reelection. She later went back on her word and won against movie action star Fernando Poe Jr. in elections widely believed to have been rigged in her favor.
Uriarte said she had no knowledge of how the funds had been used since the request indicated the money would be spent for medical assistance. For this, Lacson chided her for lack of due diligence.
