I’ve always believed that the person who succeeds Noynoy Aquino to the presidency will not have a difficult time identifying what his government’s priorities should be. All that person needs to do is to dig up Aquino’s unfulfilled promises and deliver on them.
Today (or on some other day soon), the Duterte administration is supposed to come out with its Freedom of Information directive, covering offices of the Executive branch. The executive order that will be signed by President Duterte is in lieu of an actual law that the new government will ask Congress to pass, probably as a priority legislative measure.
In all likelihood, the executive version of FOI will hew closely to earlier bills in the Senate and the House that languished in the legislative mill during the previous administration. The executive order will also be an accurate precursor of the new FOI law that the administration will ask Congress to approve, once it begins sessions later this month.
I have no doubt that this administration will make good on its promise to see an FOI law passed that will cover all branches of government and all but a few sensitive transactions. Unlike his immediate predecessor, Duterte seems to value the promises that he has made.
The previous Congress, like the rest of the population, was misled into believing that Noynoy Aquino was really serious about passing an FOI law while he was still campaigning for president. Legislators in both Houses didn’t know that, far from being transparent, Aquino actually wanted secrecy, the better to hide anomalous and questionable deals entered into by government during his time.
An FOI law will allow the public and the media to demand that the details of all government deals, contracts and transactions be made known, in the spirit of transparency. In the previous versions of the proposed law in Congress, the only exceptions are negotiations involving national security and other such sensitive matters that cannot be divulged.
Why Aquino, who ran and won on a platform of transparency, accountability and reform, failed to pass an FOI law is still a mystery. Perhaps if we already had an FOI law, we’d understand why Aquino failed to deliver on his promises, everything from defending Recto Bank from the Chinese, to self-sufficiency in rice, to extending a train line to Cavite (which he vowed to do or else get himself run over by a train).
But maybe that’s why Aquino welshed on his FOI promise. Better to let people speculate that he’s just someone who never made good on his promises than for everyone to find out just exactly what went down.
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An environmentalist group has questioned the awarding to a Manila-based businessman of a 200-hectare reclamation project along the coast of what is jocularly being called the new capital of the Philippines, Davao City. Ann Fuertes, executive director for Interface Development Interventions, an arm of the Ecowaste Coalition, called on presidential daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte to look into the awarding by the local council of the Davao City Coastline Port Development Project to Reghis Romero.
Fuertes said the council failed to conduct consultations about the P40-billion project before it was awarded to Mega Harbour Port and Development Inc., a new firm which Romero has formed. She said most people had not even heard of the project until after the ordinance approving the deal was passed on second reading by the council.
Critics of the deal doubt if Romero can finish the project, as stipulated in the contract, in three years. They also asked if Romero’s new company has the financial capability to undertake such a huge project.
These are important issues, considering Romero’s track record in completing projects in partnership with the government. That record doesn’t look good.
Under President Fidel Ramos, Romero’s R-II Builders Inc. won a P6.6-billion contract to transform the Smokey Mountain dumpsite in Tondo, Manila, into a mass housing and commercial center. After more than 20 years, the project has not been completed.
This, even after the National Housing Authority paid Romero P806 million for P211 million worth of work. That’s why Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago once called the Smokey Mountain project “the most lopsided deal in Philippine history.”
It is doubtful if Romero or his Mega Harbour have P40 billion to fund the Davao project by themselves. But will any bank or consortium of banks advance him that kind of money for the Davao reclamation project?
Again, Romero’s track record is a good guide. The Smokey Mountain contract required Romero and R-II to raise P6.6 billion in exchange for 40 hectares of reclaimed land. He has come up with only P300 million in financing so far.
But did the government punish Romero for his failure to fulfill his end of the bargain? On the contrary, the government gave him not 40 but 79 hectares as a reward.
By rights, the reclaimed land in Smokey Mountain belongs to Home Guaranty Corp., which guaranteed the deal financially. But Romero refuses to hand over the property, which his company has rented out, with the proceeds going directly to him.
If President Digong Duterte really hates corruption, the Smokey Mountain deal should grab his attention. As would yet another deal between Romero and the government.