P-Noy haunted now by his past

Doing away with his prepared draft speech as he always does, President Rodrigo Duterte casually mentioned in the course of extemporaneous remarks last Monday about a private message he received from controversial TV/movie actress Kris Aquino. Straying from the subject matter of his address before the country’s biggest taxpayers, President Duterte disclosed the actress purportedly sent him recently a text message asking him not to send to prison her only brother, former President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III.

According to President Duterte, Kris apparently alluded to his previous pronouncements about his plans on how to put a just closure to the January 2015 Mamasapano massacre. As then commander-in-chief, P-Noy deployed the Special Action Force (SAF) troopers to capture internationally wanted bomber-terrorists, but 44 of them were killed in the course of their operation.

Before the same audience, President Duterte announced he would no longer pursue his earlier plans to set up a special commission to re-open investigation into the Mamasapano massacre. The President added he would just wait for the Ombudsman to complete its probe into this case where P-Noy, along with his co-accused, were facing charges filed against them.

As of this writing though, Kris who is equally articulate and at times tactless like President Duterte, has not issued any response to the public disclosure of her private message to the Chief Executive. Surely, this is yet another action by Kris without the imprimatur of her brother.

The chivalrous President Duterte gave though his public assurances to Kris he is not one to send her brother to prison just because his predecessor happens to belong “to the other side of the political fence.” While the public assurance is well-meaning, it is the court, not the President, that can send somebody to jail. Only dictators can do that.

There is what we call due process as enshrined in our country’s 1987 Constitution.

Incidentally, the country quietly observed the 30th anniversary of the ratification of the Philippine Constitution last Feb. 2. It was the late icon of democracy, President Corazon Aquino, whose Constitution is now the subject of the renewed Charter change attempts, including the current administration of President Duterte.

While Kris may have saved P-Noy from jail – for now – ex-President Aquino is facing yet another case. The former President is being made to account for the Philippine government loss to an international court that ruled as illegal the latter’s unilateral decision to scrap the contract of a Belgian company to undertake the Laguna Lake dredging project.

The International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) reportedly ruled in favor of the Belgian dredging firm Baggerwerken Decloedt En Zoon (BDZ) which elevated their case to this United Nations commercial arbitration body. The BDZ brought their case against the Philippine government after the former President scuttled their P18-billion contract to dredge the Laguna Lake in November 2010, or a few months after the Aquino administration took office at Malacanang. The ICSID ordered the Philippine government to pay P800 million plus interest to BDZ for all the losses incurred by the firm for the project’s cancellation.

Sought by The STAR for his side, Mr. Aquino who has yet to get a copy of the ICSID ruling noted the Belgian firm was the same one that dredged the Pasig River before his tenure as president. Further, he cited, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) determined that at most, only 40 percent of the project was done and the allocation had all been used.

The Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) which entered into contract with the BDZ has yet to issue its rejoinder to the ICSID ruling. The LLDA is a government-owned and controlled corporation under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

It was former presidential spokesman and ex-ambassador of the Philippines to Greece Rigoberto Tiglao who first reported the issuance of the ICSID ruling. Tiglao, who now writes a regular column at The Manila Times, rhetorically asked in his Feb. 1 column: “Why should we taxpayers pay the cost of Aquino’s hubris and idiocy?”

Tiglao though noted Mr. Aquino did not issue any written order to officially inform the Philippine government’s cancellation of the BDZ contract with the LLDA. Tiglao recalled it was scuttled in actual practice only through Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima’s refusal to sign the documents accepting the Belgian government’s P7 billion grant to fund the project.

Tiglao blamed the scrapping of the BDZ contract to what he described as P-Noy’s “irrational, apoplectic bias” that everything his predecessor did or planned was graft-riddled.

By the way, Tiglao also once served as press secretary of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Going through our own files of stories on this case, there was a speech made by the ex-Finance chief on Jan. 30, 2012 before the Management Association of the Philippines where he justified the cancellation of the dredging project. The following excerpts from his speech explains why P-Noy scrapped the contract:

“The Laguna Lake project, I heard President Aquino say: ‘There were a lot of good projects in the previous administration.’ But you know, there were some such as the Daang Hari that were already started and we did continue with it. But the Laguna Lake, a dredging project for P18 billion and based on studies, what they will dredge will be back in three years because we have not addressed the source of the siltation, which is the deforestation of the Marikina river watershed and the human settlements are delayed. For the sake of accelerating expenditure, President Aquino could’ve signed that. But you would have wasted P18 billion of your money.”

Purisima’s successor, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III was quoted saying the Duterte administration may appeal the ICSID ruling. Dominguez confirmed they just got a copy of the ICSID ruling a few days ago. “So we’ll go over it carefully and we’ll see what legal remedies there are. If we have to pay, we will pay,” Dominguez pointed out.

Sadly, we taxpayers may have to pay for it. But the non-dredging of the Laguna Lake will continue to bear upon us, for residents in Metro Manila and the rest of the areas that suffer severe flooding at the slightest rains. This is yet another legacy of Mr. Aquino that will continue to haunt him like the Mamasapano incident.