‘The issue is whether after 23 years of
existence, PCGG deserves to stay in business.’
We support Sen. Aquilino Pimentel’s call for the abolition of
the Presidential Commission on Good Government, but for a different reason than
Pimentel’s claim that the PCGG has been a "dismal failure" in recovering the
ill-gotten assets of the Marcoses and their alleged cronies.
The PCGG should be abolished for 1) the looting by its
nominees of the funds of sequestered companies and 2) sinking many formerly
viable and highly profitable companies into near-business oblivion, if not
bankruptcy.
PCGG officials are disputing the facts about the agency’s
accomplishments.
They say the PCGG has recovered P82 billion from the assets
of the Marcoses and their cronies since 1986. On top of the recoveries, the PCGG
sequestered and prepared the privatization of more than P24 billion in assets.
It is also litigating P180 billion more in assets.
Fine, but the PCGG officials are talking history. The issue
is whether after 23 years of existence, PCGG deserves to stay in business.
Pursuing the litigation of pending cases could very well be
handled by regular prosecutors of the justice department. So this is a
non-issue.
The only other job which may be left unattended by the
abolition of the PCGG is the preservation of the assets of sequestered
companies. Perhaps there is a continuing need for old-style agents to monitor
how company funds are spent. But if fiscal agents are retained, there must some
way of ensuring that they do not end up as the very dissipators of assets they
are supposed to preserve.
The biggest anomaly, however, is PCCG’s management control of
sequestered companies through its nominees. This has two well-documented ruinous
results.
One is thievery. A good example is the Philcomsat Group. One
company belonging to the group started out with P800 million in cash. After
years of PCGG management, the cash hoard of the company is now down to less than
P200 million. People close to the Palace were primarily responsible for the
raid, including bad loans in the hundreds of millions to apparent front
companies. But even if that was so, they were officially acting in the name of
PCGG.
Second is opportunities lost to the sequestered company.
Again the Philcomsat Group is a good example. It was cash-rich because of its
monopoly over satellite communications. It was well-positioned to grab the
opportunities offered by new digital technologies. But because growing the
business was the least of PCGG’s concerns, the Philcomsat Group is now a sorry
shell of its former self.
