Carnival

The Senate hearing on the $81 million money laundering case is quickly degenerating into a carnival.

Because of the disorganized information generated by these hearings, abundant in speculation and innuendo, the worst possible picture of the case emerges. It is this blurry picture that has circulated in the international press, making us vulnerable to any number of punitive measures by foreign governments.

Already, a number of Philippine banks announced they are closing remittance operations in Europe. That can only be to the detriment of our overseas workers, as Susan Ople warned during the first hearing. If Philippine banks withdraw their remittance operations in the face of tighter regulation by foreign governments, our workers will have no recourse but foreign banks that charge higher fees for their financial services.

The outcomes could be worse.

The other day, former finance secretary and currently Philippine Veterans Bank chair Roberto de Ocampo issued a statement warning about the possible outcomes of the haphazard and amateurish public hearings being held at the Senate.

“Unfortunately,” says de Ocampo, the Senate hearing “has become a global spectacle. Unfortunate because as the investigation aired live on television, drags, unintended consequences are starting to emerge and be felt across the board. If we continue on this path, the gains we have had in the past will be at risk: our credit rating, foreign investments, economic growth and even our international banking and financial operations.”

He furthermore urged “sobriety and introspection lest we unwittingly put national interest at risk.” The legislators, some of whom are seeking reelection, could put grandstanding ahead of protecting our institutions.

De Ocampo suggests that subsequent hearings be held behind closed doors. That will be more efficient in yielding information as well as guarding against unwarranted speculation.

As former finance secretary and a career banker, de Ocampo knows whereof he speaks. The senators might want to take heed.

Our Senate public hearings invariably degenerate into the burlesque. This is because our honorable legislators rarely do their homework so that they confront witnesses with evidence rather than embark on fishing expeditions.

When the British Parliament conducted hearings on the phone hacking done by the tabloids, the BBC carried the proceedings extensively. I was impressed by the discipline and efficiency with which it was done. None of the MPs spoke directly to the resource persons.  Everything was coursed through a lawyer who laid down the evidence and lined up his questions in the most impeccable manner.

Why can’t we do that?

As it is, every legislator meanders one way or the other, takes up as much TV time as possible and, pronounce on what the resource persons say. This is not the most effective way of conducting such hearings – especially on something truly delicate such as our banking procedures and the work being done by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC).

Both the AMLC and the BSP have tremendous capacities for conducting discreet investigations, mustering the evidence before making any public pronouncements. Because they are banking professionals, they have intimate grasp of the procedures and an incomparable insight into how our financial institutions go about their business.

The work of both institutions could be preempted by senators trying to upstage each other. In the case of Kim Wong, who dramatically called up the AMLC last Thursday and asked for an armored truck to collect $4.6 million in cash, the person under investigation actually upstaged the senators.

Everything is in peril of becoming mere media play at this point.

The NBI anti-fraud task force, the AMLC and the BSP (coordinating with the FBI) ought to be left to do their jobs without the Senate sideshow. None of the senators, after all, have the investigative capacity the existing institutions possess.

Depot

It is April – the month the DOTC secretary promised us the new trains will be put in service. All of two trains have been delivered and motors have finally been attached to them.

Another problem surfaces, however. As it turns out, no new depot space has been built for the new trains.

Al Vitangcol, the designated scapegoat for all the failures now besetting the MRT-3, spoke up once more earlier this week. He accuses Mar Roxas and Jun Abaya of corruption in highly questionable deals involving small-time contractors with links to the LP.

The truly new thing he said, however, was that he had written Mar Roxas when he was DOTC secretary and then Jun Abaya about the need to construct additional depots for the new trains ordered from a Chinese supplier. The supplemental depot will require 80,000 square meters and might take years to build. Neither of the two acted on the recommendation.

Now we have the trains and no depots for them. How incompetent could these two gentlemen be?

While firing a barrage of press releases denigrating Vitangcol, Abaya now tells us, almost as an aside, that the new trains cannot yet be put into service. He did not provide us a clear reason for this new failure, refusing to admit that minor oversight about building new depots to accommodate the new trains.

What a cursed agency the DOTC has become in the hands of Roxas and his clone Abaya. Now we have new trains we cannot use because there is no stabling space to operate them from. Even if they try to cram the Dalian trains into the old depot, the rails there have been torn out to replace broken ones in service.

These men and their President should have thrown themselves before an onrushing train as they promised before.