TAGA-ILOG NEWS: The lost containers C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S Jonathan De la Cruz 07/27/2011 I will now take P-Noy at his word and take the fight against this “culture of wang-wang,” that is abuse of power and privilege, and, yes, graft and corruption, personally. I will begin by asking Customs Commissioner Lito Alvarez and his anti-smuggling (RATS) czar, Deputy Commissioner Greg Chavez, to join me in going after the hooligans, in and out of the bureau, who engineered that Houdini act resulting in the disappearance of 1,624 containers (were these 20 or 40 footers?) released from the Port of Manila and the Manila International Container Port (MICP) transiting to the Port of Batangas. These containers never got to Batangas. How did this happen at all? And where are these containers now? As first reported by Batangas Port Collector Juan Tan, only 305 container vans being transhipped by importers Sea Eagles Trading, LCN Trading and Monvellian Enterprises from the two Manila ports to his area actually got there. The rest, 595 all in all, never reached port. Then came Customs Intelligence Chief Dino Tuason with an even more startling revelation. Based on documents in his possession, Tuason said there were actually 2,219 containers released from the Manila ports for transshipment to Batangas. So, we are not talking here of only 595 missing containers but a whooping 1,624 containing God knows what goods. These must have cost billions of pesos worth of goods and yes, an equally huge sum, maybe in the hundreds of millions at least, in grease money which oiled this Houdini operations. It is impossible for such a large number to simply disappear into the night, as it were. There must at least be a trace and it should be easy to account for these. Unless the perpetrators so organized this operation they were able to blindside everybody to look elsewhere while they covered their tracks. Up to now, Alvarez and Chavez have yet to issue any report on this highly mysterious disappearance right under their very noses. Yet these guys usually go out of their way to trumpet their weekly RATS reports targeting all kinds of “malcontents,” in their view of course, for all kinds of “misdeeds” committed at the ports. How come they have not spoken a word about this caper? This is definitely an open and shut case which Alvarez and Chavez can easily uncover and bring to light if they are so minded. But the public remains in the dark wondering where these guys are at a time when P-Noy just announced a transformational breakthrough of sorts, well we await with bated breath what Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima whose handling of the economy over the past 365 days was one of P-Noy’s major Sona revelations. Then, once we get a satisfactory answer on these lost containers, I will proceed to ask P-Noy and his team to kindly advise if indeed they have reviewed the BOT contract of this publicly listed Malaysian firm, MTD Bhd., for the rehabilitation, upgrading and operation of the South Luzon Expressway (Slex) from Alabang to Calamba (or is it Sto. Tomas?). After all, if P-Noy can just cancel “big ticket” projects such as the P18 billion Laguna Lake Project despite serious legal and diplomatic consequences presumably on the say-so of his reviewers like DPWH Secretary Babes Singson and, yes, Finance Secretary Purisima, it is impossible to have missed out on this multi-billion, multi-year project. In case they have actually failed to look into this project then they better get going now. For the record, the representations of MTD Bhd before the TRB when it was defending its toll increase was a complete lie. In filings in Malaysia, the company said it spent P12 billion on the entire Alabang-Lucena City portion of the expressway. Yet, before the TRB it said it spent exactly the same amount only for the Alabang-Calamba-Sto. Tomas leg. The TRB took the firm’s representations hook, line and sinker and proceeded to approve the increase rates despite the objections of oppositors led by lawyer Ernesto Francisco who personally told the TRB about MTD Bhd’s false claims in Kuala Lumpur. I hope the TRB headed by newly appointed DoTC Secretary Mar Roxas with Singson and Purisima as members will rectify this manifest error immediately and make good on P-Noy’s anti-culture of wang-wang and daang matuwid mantras, And, we are just talking here of this Slex BOT contract. And yet this company has the gall to advise that it will join the bidding for the Daang Hari PPP project? What about showing this firm the door before it is too late and before it hazards to even dip its fingers again into the pie at the government’s and the public’s expense? And while they continue with their reviews why not include the other BOT contracts which have been in place for sometime or even those which are in the signing stage which government and the public will let go to their woe and despair. And while he is at it, how about working to standardize the rate setting frame for basic utilities such as electricity and water which, as reports have it, are being handled under divergent, sometimes, inchoate, arrangements leading to undue spikes in these basic needs? Throw in as well executive action on basic commodities including oil and oil products which, if P-Noy wants it, can at least be tamed like what the NFA did with rice importations? And then, get the LGUs and national government agencies to work on synchronizing actions on a host of measures to simplify rules and make way for investor friendly arrangements down to the lowest barangays. that will go a longer way in uplifting our marginalized sectors than all the CCT dosages across the board? And, finally, how about working on jueteng (at least minimize it if you cannot entirely eradicate), the cases of carnappings, extra-judicial and media killings, the Freedom of Information (FoI) initiative which P-Noy can jumpstart at the executive branch level while the bill is being shepherded through Congress. And so, as as we laud P-Noy for insisting against all comers to take the anti wang-wang and anti corruption drives, personally, we ask him and his advisers now to go get the perpetrators of the scams, the protectors of ill conceived and implemented projects and all others who have adapted to the wang-wang culture without any hint that indeed they have realized their mistakes and are now on the bend. I will be happy to know that jueteng operators are now on the run, the containers have all been accounted for and the perpetrators handed their just desserts. Let’s go...go...go... | More .COMMENTARY. EDITORIAL Bleak future under Noy FRONTLINE Directionless Noynoy FEATURE Czech ‘rent-a-goat’ attraction helps African families C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S The lost containers FEATURE Floods rupture Pakistani feudal ties HE SAYS How simple? SHE SAYS So now what?