Conflict of interest?
I asked the question whether the P60 million paid to Bitag Productions by the Department of Tourism for ads at the time of then secretary Wanda Teo have already been returned. My question was answered by the current tourism secretary, Bernadette Romulo Puyat. No. The company has not yet returned the promised P60 million to the DOT, when the issue surfaced leading to Wanda Teo's resignation as DOT secretary. DOT Sec. Puyat said she did not know of any money returned by Bitag Productions to the DOT. If Ramon Tulfo is asked, he said the promise to return the P60 million was made by the Tulfos' lawyer Ferdinand Topacio, who did not have the authority to make such a promise. So the question is, will it be returned or not? Maybe they need to clear that with the new DOT leadership. I'm sure the DOT would want to be cleared on that.
On to another matter. According to the SEC, 60 percent of Vigilant Investigative and Security Agency Inc. (VISAI) is still owned by Solicitor General Calida. He may have resigned as president and chairman, but he still owns more than half of the company. The remaining 40 percent belongs to his wife and three children, at ten percent each. According to him, there is no conflict of interest. He also claims the issue is different from the Wanda Teo issue. Is it really different? When VISAI profits, doesn't Calida profit as well, since he owns more than half the company?
DOJ Sec. Guevarra has said that the security agency's contract with DOJ will be looked into. He initially stated that there was no reason to do so, citing presumption of regularity as well as an absence of a formal complaint. He did say that the DOJ should have been more circumspect. Probably his way of saying that the contract should not have been allowed, as it may be questioned. We have a word for that, "delicadeza."
But Duterte has spoken. He said he is not firing Calida because he has resigned from the company and is no longer interfering with the business. It just so happened that when Calida was in government, the security agency of which he still owns more than half, bagged several government contracts worth millions. As I said, he may have resigned as president and chairman, but he still benefits from his family's business. "Delicadeza?" I guess not in this case. It may have been a different story if VISAI did not have contracts with the government at this time. It may have also been a different story if Calida was not instrumental in getting former Supreme Court chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno ousted.
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