Smokey Mountain mess BLURBAL THRUSTS Louie Logarta 06/27/2010

Smokey Mountain mess

BLURBAL THRUSTS Louie Logarta 06/27/2010 Vice President Noli de Castro, who is about to step down from office this coming Wednesday, June 30th, together with President Arroyo when both their terms officially expire, has just been slapped serious graft raps — alongside such outgoing Arroyo government functionaries as Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, National Housing Authority general manager Federico Laxa, Home Guaranty Corp. president Gonzalo Bongolan and controversial businessman Reghis Romero II of R-II Builders — before the Ombudsman in connection with the multi-billion Smokey Mountain low-cost housing project in Tondo, Manila whose intended beneficiaries are thousands of squatters who are long-time residents of one of the most depressed areas in the country. For the Veep, as with the others presumably, the case was quite a bummer. Totally unexpected, because it had materialized literally during the “last two minutes” of the Arroyo administration, for they (except for Romero) were all expecting to leave the government service peaceably and retire gracefully into the sunset. Characterizing it as one of those midnight deals meant to line the pockets of departing Arroyo government officials as their pabaon or going away gifts, former Cavite newsman Ligorio Naval, who claimed to be merely acting as a concerned taxpayer, had filed a suit before the Ombudsman saying he wanted to thwart the designs of De Castro, Laxa, Bongolan and Teves to have the government release at some P6 billion for the Smokey Mountain Development Project (SMDP) which was allegedly grossly overpriced, not to mention the fact that it remains unfinished after more than a decade of construction work. In the suit, Naval said De Castro et al. had violated the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act for conspiring to enter into a spurious memorandum of agreement and compromise agreement with R-II that in actuality were “cover-ups intricately woven, devised and meticulously designed to conceal a grand scam, which have caused substantial and undue injury to the government.”.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100627com4.html

COMMENTARY EDITORIAL Parting shots FRONTLINE Promises, promises FEATURE Land of ‘Female Eunuch’ welcomes first woman prime minister BLURBAL THRUSTS Smokey Mountain mess C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S ‘Politically disruptive’ VIEWPOINTS Once more with feeling: Presenting Pagcor focus Today’s Chinese workers wise up — and rise up