Business Circuit

Suffering the Macapagals

Emmanuel Pelaez was vice president to Diosdado Macapagal when he went deep into reclaiming Sabah for the Sultan of Sulu.

President Macapagal threw a monkey wrench on the effort. He thrashed it to form the Maphilindo – Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia.

The claim to Sabah was all but abandoned.

Ferdinand Marcos tried to take Sabah by force through a plan called Jabidah. Benigno Aquino exposed it. Getting Sabah from Malaysia became a pipe dream.

In retaliation, Malaysia created and funded what is now a national disaster – the MILF.

We have history repeating itself. President Macapagal aborted the claim to Sabah.

His daughter, Gloria M. Arroyo is practically giving away part of Philippine territorial waters through the baseline bill she supports to the hilt.

How sad!

In denying the Asian Emerging Dragons Corp. the right to operate the controversial Terminal 3, the Supreme Court ruled "(otherwise) the original proponent can hold the government hostage and secure the infrastructure project based solely on the fact that the it (AEDC) was first to submit the proposal."

The flaw in this ruling is the failure of the Court, probably because it was not alleged, to recognize that the unsolicited bid was challenged by Philippine International Airport Corp. (Piatco).

Under the rules of the BOT law, the challenger has an obligation to reveal the terms of the challenge to enable the unsolicited bidder to match the terms.

The terms of Piatco were never revealed but the government went on to accept it. This prompted AEDC to go to Court to force the disclosure of the terms and conditions of the challenger.

AEDC was forced to come to a settlement of the case under duress. It had to yield to the wishes of a powerful official.

Thus, it may be said that indeed, AEDC was a legal original bidder because the challenger did not reveal its terms. Who can say that AEDC could have matched the terms or even improved on them if the challenger had revealed its terms? The Supreme Court has the answer.

Against the advice of American lawyers – White & Case – then Solicitor General Alfredo Benipayo expropriated Terminal 3.

The government had to pay P3 billion to the Cheng Yong group.

Now Piatco, led by the family of Cheng, is claiming just compensation. Associate Justice Dante Tinga even ruled that compensation may be made without opening the books of account of Piatco and its partner, Fraport AG of Germany.

Fraport filed an arbitration case with the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). It claimed that the Philippine government violated the investment treaty with Germany.

ICSID saw fraud on the part of Fraport and rendered judgment in favor of the Philippine government in spite of Malacañang efforts to lose the case.

Given all these, we might say that the Arroyo government is liable for the mess in the new supposedly world-class terminal.

I can prove or disprove that the relatives of Sen. Jamby Madrigal did a hatchet job on her when the last will and testament of her late childless aunt was published by the Manila Standard and later in this column.

I do not know how the Standard obtained a copy of the last will and testament. I have a copy that was not supplied by any of the Madrigals.

It turned out that the senator is not among the few names in the will. She now says she is not after the money. She wants justice.

Taken in this sense, I cannot figure out what justice means in the mind of Jamby Madrigal.

What I know is that the late Mrs. Madrigal Collantes did have not have a legal or direct heir except their adopted son Gustav, son of Bo Warns who is a son of Pacita Madrigal Warns by her first marriage.

Luisa "Ising" Vasquez, the youngest child of Don Vicente Madrigal is a sister of Mrs. Collantes. She is not complaining.

There are nieces and nephews by Chito’s brother and sisters, namely Antonio, father of Jamby, the late Belek, the late Macaria de Leon and the late Mrs. Bayot. Only Chu Chu Madrigal daughter of Antonio, Ging Montinola, daughter of Pacita and Gustav, the adopted son, are in the will.

The senator is reported to have said that we journalists may fall from our seats when she tells the truth. Where I sit her idea of truth may not sit well with ours or with what her aunt’s Last Will and Testament declares.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue did not perform so well in 2007. It recorded a collection shortfall of P53 billion.

The shortfall for the second half was a gargantuan P38 billion. Then officer-in-charge Lilia Hefty admits being accountable for P15 billion of the short fall in the second half of 2007.

Left to her own designs as BIR Commissioner, Hefti came back with a vengeance. For the first quarter of the current year Hefti collected a record P166 billion against P143 billion in the same period last year. The increase of P25 billion is about 16 percent higher.

Hefti’s hefty collection for the first quarter exceed by P2 billion the amount the Department of Finance ordered her to collect.

That’s quite a feat in these troubled times when business complains of living through very difficult times.

My guess is in the best of times or in the worst of times, the BIR can always collect large sums if it is headed by a dedicated person like Hefti. She honed her skills in the BIR.