Yearender: Scandals rock PCGG in 2008

Feuding officials, exposés on unliquidated multimillion-peso cash advances and million-dollar foreign travels, as well as a bribery scandal involving its top official kept the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) in the headlines in 2008.

It was revealed that a questionable phone call was made by PCGG chairman Camilo Sabio to his younger brother, Court of Appeals associate justice Jose Sabio Jr., persuading the latter to favor the government side in the bitter fight between Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) president and general manager Winston Garcia and the Lopez family for control of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

This led to a two-month leave of absence for the PCGG chair, starting Sept. 29, 2008, to focus on his defense in the disbarment case filed against him by no less than the Supreme Court.

Sabio had admitted to the three-man body formed by the Supreme Court to investigate the Meralco scandal that he called his younger brother after he received a call from GSIS board member Atty. Jess Santos, also the personal lawyer of First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, asking him for help in the boardroom battle for the utility firm.

Throughout the controversy, Sabio showed a steely resolve not to resign from his post despite calls by many for him to do so in light of his involvement in the scandal and the disbarment case initiated against him.

Sabio even figured in another controversy when he tried to reclaim his post a month into his indefinite leave of absence.

The problem arose when the officer-in-charge appointed by Malacañang to head the agency during Sabio’s leave, Commissioner Narciso Nario, refused to relinquish the position without an order from the President to do so.

Sabio turned up unannounced on the morning of Oct. 31 at the PCGG head office at the IRC building in Mandaluyong City to reassume his office, much to the surprise of Nario.

A leadership struggle between Sabio and Nario was averted when Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez stepped in and advised Sabio to extend his leave as the DOJ conducted its investigation into his involvement in the CA bribery case.

Last Dec. 5 or after another month of extended vacation, Sabio finally returned to work.

Back as PCGG chairman, Sabio implemented a reorganization of commissioners’ assignments.

In the reorganization, Sabio removed Nario, a retired associate justice of the Sandiganbayan before his appointment as one of PCGG’s four commissioners in 2005, and one of two commissioners handling litigation, and assigned him instead to handle a newly created portfolio of research and development.

Sabio had appointed in Nario’s place his close friend and law school classmate, Commissioner Jaime Bautista, a former envoy to Russia.

Sabio also transferred Commissioner Ricardo Abcede, who used to head the asset management department, to be the other commissioner heading litigation.

Commissioner Tereso Javier, formerly Nario’s fellow commissioner handling litigation, was named new head for the asset management department.

The reorganization, however, caused disunity in PCGG.

Last Dec. 12, Abcede came out with an open letter to Sabio and his three fellow commissioners expressing concern over the motives of Sabio’s reorganization.

While he assured Sabio of his submission to the reorganization, Abcede noted that Sabio had let personal feelings intrude into his decision on whom to appoint among the commissioners to the “sensitive” positions.

“It is incumbent upon PCGG commissioners to support their chairman, acceding to the presumed wisdom of major management and policy decisions proposed or ordered by him. PCGG Commissioners may exercise their right of dissent only when duty so requires, such dissent preferably not tainted by personal interests sought to be protected or promoted,” Abcede said.

“Equally, the PCGG chairman should exercise the prerogatives of his office for the good of the institution and in accordance with its Charter. Strictly personal considerations should not be allowed to predominate,” Abcede noted.

“Although I do not know the whys and wherefores of the current reorganization ordered by Chairman Sabio, I choose to submit to his wishes. This leap of faith is founded on my trust in his integrity and his enduring sense of fairness, as well as in my hope that this unwelcome upheaval is temporary in nature,” Abcede said.

Before his squabble with Nario, Sabio’s authority as PCGG chairman had been soundly challenged by an ambitious former commissioner, Nicasio Conti, who had bitterly fought to prolong his service in the commission after being relieved in October 2007.

In an announcement made in October 2007, Sabio said that Conti had been ordered by Malacañang to be replaced by William Dichoso, who was returning as commissioner in the agency, having served in the same capacity during the time of the late chairman Haydee Yorac.

Sabio said that Dichoso had agreed to assume the post in January 2008 in deference to the request of Conti who wanted to end the year as commissioner.

But in January, Conti suddenly backed out of his vow to step down, announcing that his relief and Dichoso’s appointment had been recalled by Malacañang.

Faced with Conti’s fierce bid to hold on to his post, Dichoso, in apparent disgust, chose to resign from the position.

Months later, Sabio again announced that Malacañang had ordered a new replacement for Conti in the person of now incumbent commissioner Jaime Bautista, then a special legal consultant detailed under the office of Sabio.

Unfortunately for Sabio, Conti was able to maneuver a 90-day extension of his tour of duty at the PCGG with Malacañang, resulting in Bautista delaying his assumption as commissioner for three months.

It was during Sabio’s power struggle with Conti that a graft complaint against Sabio was sent to the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission.

The complaint was about an alleged P10-million unliquidated cash advance received by Sabio from a realty firm surrendered to the PCGG by the late Marcos crony Jose Yao Campos, the Mid-Pasig Land Development Corp. (MPLDC), in 2006 that has remained unliquidated in 2007.

Sabio is believed to have laid responsibility for the PAGC complaint on the doorstep of Conti, a former commissioner of the PAGC before his appointment to the PCGG.

In October 2008, documents about the almost $1-million worth of foreign travels made by PCGG officials and even rank and file personnel from January to June 2008 circulated among PCGG reporters.

Subsequently, a graft complaint surfaced at the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the expensive foreign travels, with the complainants identified as the PCGG Employees Association and the PCGG Special Legal Consultants.

PCGGEA president Nicanor Suarez denied he or any member of the PCGG union had participated in the filing of the complaint. PCGG special legal consultants had also denied they had formed a group that had filed a complaint against Sabio before the Ombudsman.

Despite all the controversies, PCGG Commissioner Abcede said that the agency has not been sidetracked from doing its job of monitoring the numerous cases pending before the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan against the widow and the heirs of late President Ferdinand Marcos and his many cronies.

“We have made some recoveries this year,” Abcede told The STAR in an interview last month.

Abcede pointed out that for 2008, PCGG had remitted to the government around P1.2 billion representing the PLDT dividends they were able to forfeit in favor of the government from the Philippine Telecommunication Investments Corp. (PTIC).

Abcede said that they were also able to realize P60 million in proceeds from the sale of a sequestered lot in Tagaytay City.

“While we have been inconvenienced by the negative image we are getting in the media, we have never let ourselves be distracted by all these issues,” Abcede said.

Abcede said that the PCGG knows it will be buffeted by attacks from the people they were supposed to go after.

“The cronies are back in power, and they want to knock the PCGG dead,” Abcede stressed.

“Cronies get the best lawyers money can buy. And if that’s not enough, it should come as no surprise that they are not above using their vast resources to go around our judicial system to defeat the government in these cases,” Abcede added.

But despite all these challenges, Abcede assured the public that the PCGG will do its best to fulfill its mandate and win the recovery cases.

Abcede pointed out that with more that P60 billion in recoveries since its creation in 1986, the PCGG has been winning its fair share of cases.