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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Garcia�s Millions, Hernando�s Giveaway By Antonio C. Abaya Written Nov. 03, 2004 For the Manila Standard November 04 issue In response to my article �GMA and Garcia� (Oct. 28), Melchor Arthur H. Carandang, acting assistant Ombudsman, has written a letter, published in full in the Nov. 2 issue of the Manila Standard, disputing my statement that the Office of the Ombudsman was informed by US Customs Office about Maj. Gen. Carlos F. Garcia�s dollar transfers as early as December 2003, or right after the incident at San Francisco airport. Assistant Ombudsman Carandang writes that �unfortunately you were given �.erroneous information�..The truth of the matter is that said information was given to our Office, for the first time, (italics his), only on September 10, 2004.� This was in the form of a verbal briefing, followed by a formal letter dated September 14, 2004, (photocopy attached by him) from David E. Meisner, ICE Attache at the US Embassy, ICE standing for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. �A formal complaint was filed on September 27, 2004 by our investigating unit with our Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for the Military and Other Law Enforcement Offices. Within 24 hours, our Office already issued an order placing Maj. Gen. Garcia on a six-month preventive suspension. Said order of preventive suspension was served on Maj. Gen. Garcia the following day, September 29, 2004�The story broke out in the newspapers for the first time only on October 4, 2004��� I would like to thank Assistant Ombudsman Carandang for the correction. His letter will appear in full in www.tapatt.org, together with the letter from Mr. Meisner of the US Embassy. Wrote Mr. Meisner, in his letter addressed to Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo: �This investigation (of Maj. Gen. Carlos Flores Garcia and his immediate family) was initiated after Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) seized $100,000 USD from General Garcia�s sons, Ian and Juan, after they entered the US from the Philippines on Dec. 19, 2003. �Our records indicate that General Garcia and his wife Clarita have transported over $500,000 USD into the US from the Philippines since 1993. ICE agents also have information the family owns several properties in the US, including two condominiums in New York and a dwelling in Ohio. The condominiums are valued at over $1,420,000 USD alone���� This clarification puts into sharper focus the perception that the Bush Administration leaked to Philippine media news about Gen. Garcia�s dollar transfers, in August-September or several months after the San Francisco airport incident, deliberately to embarrass President Arroyo and to get back at her for pulling out the Philippine contingent from Iraq last July. The Office of the Ombudsman did not know about it in December, and the AFP Chief-of-Staff Gen. Narciso Abaya only �heard rumors� about it in January-February, which led to Gen. Garcia�s removal from the AFP comptrollership and not much else. In the light of the joint US Senate-House committee investigation of 9/11, the most gaping structural flaw found in the country�s defenses was the failure of its various intel agencies to communicate and share information with each other. That has since been corrected, according to National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, and it is now routine for the CIA, FBI, Customs, Defense, Justice, State, Homeland Security, Coast Guard and other agencies to sit down together and share their latest intel inputs. It is therefore safe to assume that when Gen Garcia�s sons were caught with undeclared $100,000 at San Francisco airport last December, this was discussed at the regular all-agencies briefings shortly thereafter, during which the Garcias� past record of dollar transfers and their real estate holdings in New York and Ohio came up and were collated into one explosive dossier. Said dossier was not made public earlier as it would have embarrassed the Philippine military and President Arroyo, then considered steadfast allies in the war on terrorism. But when she pulled the Philippine contingent from Iraq last July, the dossier was leaked to Philippine media to show the Americans� extreme displeasure with her. Which she exacerbated by signing last October an agreement with China for a joint exploration for oil in the disputed Spratly Islands. Apparently no one in her inner circle knows anything about the PNAC and its strategic goals. ****** In reaction to my article �Panic Button� (Oct. 20), which criticized the Arroyo government�s plan, inspired by Hernando de Soto�s pet theory, to sell to the squatters the Philippine National Railway�s right-of-way from Muntinlupa to Caloocan, one P. Schaefer sent an email from Washington DC. As his/her email is long, I can only quote excerpts from it. The entire email will appear in www.tapatt.org. Wrote Schaefer: �First you confuse tactics (rail line titling) with strategy, just because in general de Soto validates existing claims, does not mean all existing land holdings should be validated. In any case, that isn�t his call. He gives tools to government and assets to poor people. The purpose is equality and efficiency which must be balanced. Having good property rights and then access to public lands on which to build (ILD studies suggest this takes 24 years in your country) will actually allow things like rights-of-way to be decongested by moving them to public lands. Perhaps you want to keep it them (sic) way? But if so, that shows further ignorance since even the Ayalas might benefit from a good national property law. No one there has completely solid titles��.. �In any case, since de Soto appears to have done nothing but a diagnosis so far, he could be no where near making the recommendation you suggest. I can�t speak to (sic) what someone in the Arroyo administration suggests, and I suspect that this was not the result of a recommendation from de Soto which, again, is not the sort of things he would be asked to recommend in the first place�..� MY REPLY. Precisely. I was not criticizing de Soto�s pet theory per se, but the initiative of someone in the Arroyo administration to apply that theory to this particular property, the railway right-of-way. In my companion article �Dumb and Dumber� (Sept. 30), I wrote that �This idea may make sense in a wider squatter area, such as the Fabie estate in Paco, but does not make much sense in a narrow strip of land, only 10 to 30 meters wide�..� This reply also answers a reaction from a Fil-American viewer in California, whose email was inadvertently deleted from my computer. He cited, probably from the Internet, the many awards and recognition given to Hernando de Soto from international organizations for his pioneering work with urban squatters in his native Peru and elsewhere. I have no quarrel with the idea of selling to the squatters the land that they squat on, except this particular piece of property, which does not belong to any greedy oligarch but to the badly mismanaged, state-owned national railways. Perhaps, P. Schaefer in Washington and the Fil-Am viewer in California are not familiar with this piece of real estate. It is about 23 kms long but is only 10-to-30 meters wide. It connects the northern and southern boundaries of Manila and is therefore ideal for a north-south commuter rail line (my preference is for a subway), which it was serving for decades, until it was overrun by thousands of squatter families, forcing the few operating trains left to crawl at less than 18 kph. At that speed, few commuters use it for their daily commutes. But even at that pathetic pace, every month one or two residents of the squatter colonies get run over by trains and die horrible deaths, the squatters� hovels being less than two meters away from the tracks. As a railway buff, I have watched video clips of the Peruvian railways� tracks from Lima to Ayacucho and Cuzco. They do not have anything like our squatter problem. I am sure Hernando de Soto himself would agree with my point. And my point is: this narrow strip of land is best left in the hands of the state, cleared of all squatters, and used for the purpose it is best suited for, a north-south commuter rail line or subway, that would decongest the metro streets of road-hogging provincial buses, reduce air pollution substantially, and save millions of commuters and motorists the hours that they at present waste everyday in kilometers-long traffic jams. The squatters are best relocated to volunteer-built dignified housing, then organized into manufacturing co-operatives to fabricate products for which there is or can be a real demand, as I have often suggested. Again, I am sure Hernando de Soto himself would agree that this is a better solution than selling the right-of-way to the squatters. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles in www.tapatt.org. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Garcia�s Millions, Hernando�s Giveaway� Thanks. Debate and clarification are always helpful. Peter Schaefer, [email protected] Washington, DC, November 06, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww With all due respect to the assistant ombudsman we come to question the time between Sept. 4th and Oct. 10th ? And the failure all around not discovering and acting decisively on the matter ? Could there have been the issue of a cover up from all sectors ? Did the media fail to discover ? The ombudsmen ? NBI ? AFP ? or were the Oakwood fellows need to be absolved ? Ray Eced, [email protected] November 04, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony: Garcia's Millions and Hernando's Giveaway are but two small parts of an overall mosaic of criminality. Yes, the GMA administration is one big criminal enterprise - and all one has to do is look at some of GMA's latest appointments. The cabinet member in charge of revenue enhancement is a cruel joke: it's evident whose revenue he's being asked to enhance - his and GMA's. Another depressing appointment is the new NHMFC President, a jueteng lord in Marikina who is also said to have insurance fraud cases in the US. Let's not forget about the PEA head, who is rumored to be related to one of GMA's current flames, so the appointment is some form of payment for services rendered. And while we're reminiscing, what about the on-again, off-again appointment at Treasury and the off-again, on-again designation at MTRCB. Di kaya under negotiation pa ang appointments na ito? Tama na! It's time to get rid of the criminal mafia posing as the Philippine government. Let's all get together and start cleaning up! Tito Osias, [email protected] November 04, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww 1. "This clarification puts into sharper focus the perception that the Bush Administration leaked to Philippine media news about Gen. Garcia's dollar transfers. the AFP Chief-of-Staff Gen. Narciso Abaya only "heard rumors" about it in January-February, which led to Gen. Garcia's removal from the AFP comptrollership and not much else. .In the light of the joint US Senate-House committee investigation of 9/11. it is now routine for the CIA, FBI, Customs, Defense, Justice, State, Homeland Security, Coast Guard and other agencies to sit down together and share their latest intel inputs. . �It is therefore safe to assume that when Gen Garcia's sons were . this was discussed at the regular all-agencies briefings shortly thereafter, during which the Garcias' past record of dollar transfers and their real estate holdings in New York and Ohio came up and were collated into one explosive dossier. �Said dossier was not made public earlier as it would have embarrassed the Philippine military and President Arroyo, then considered steadfast allies in the war on terrorism. But when she pulled the Philippine contingent from Iraq last July, the dossier was leaked to Philippine media to show the Americans' extreme displeasure with her. Which she exacerbated by signing last October an agreement with China for a joint exploration for oil in the disputed Spratly Islands. Apparently no one in her inner circle knows anything about the PNAC and its strategic goals." Dear Tony, knowledge is power; hiding it or using it wields power. What was the USA's motive to keep it quiet for some time? What was USA's motive to divulge it in due time? Only the USA knows. We can only have good guesses. But I think you guessed it right. Two real (or part) motives we don't have to guess: 1)when the USA kept it quite, it was good for the USA. 2) When the USA eventually divulged it, it was also good for USA. What were the goodies in them? You already said it so well. Since a transaction of this sort always yields a plus and a minus, where goes the plus and the minus? Of course, the plus for the USAthe doer, and a minus for GMA the receiver! Ugh! -- Ogie 2. "...And my point is: this narrow strip of land is best left in the hands of the state, cleared of all squatters, and used for the purpose it is best suited for, a north-south commuter rail line or subway, that would decongest the metro streets of road-hogging provincial buses, reduce air pollution substantially, and save millions of commuters and motorists the hours that they at present waste everyday in kilometers-long traffic jams...The squatters are best relocated�...Again, I am sure Hernando de Soto himself would agree that this is a better solution than selling the right-of-way to the squatters." Tony, I am no Hernando de Soto to be able to comment whether he agrees or not; so are you, so let this guy be. I am no Schaefer of communities either, so are you. In like manner as before we leave this guy alone.We go for what works best and your idea must be considered as one of the best alternatives. I really don't care what de Soto thinks, I care more of what our agency concerned officials think and do in this case for it is their thinking that we must contend with. Let us hear from them. I agree that Hernando de Soto may have success elsewhere with his medicine. But like all medicines there are essential factors, features and circumstances that must be present/partly present or absent/partly absent to make it do its work of healing. Healing or resolving is never a question of making the circumstance fit Hernando but fitting a kind of Hernando to our peculiar circumstance. Your kind of Hernando sounds so much better to me. Write on, Tony! You do the Filipinos good with your writing.--- Ogie, [email protected] November 04, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, I finally I found a source of interesting articles about the Philippines that I truly enjoyed. While re-reading an old article about Gringo Honasan, sent a year ago by a friend from NJ, I saw the reference to the TAPATT website. I enjoyed reading your articles on garbage (GIGO), SAKSI sa Kagaguhan, BANGON, and especially the "The Co-op Solution". Unfortunately I was partly dismayed by your reply to Ms Vicki Garchitorena's letter. She mentioned PLDT, and AYALA's success with cooperatives and she also said Obet Pagdanganan is an expert on the subject. Part of your reply was: "The co-op movement here has to be re-invented, but to be credible, it must be led by non-trapos and non-politicians." Mr. Pagdanganan was I think a governor of Bulacan for two or three terms and during the time he was governor I read he championed the cooperative movement in Bulacan. I have been out of the country for 30 years so I really don't know much about Mr.Pagdanganan. But I think the country needs all the help it could get so if Ms Garchitorena thinks Obet is an expert and has even written a book on the subject, and if he could really help, then we should avail of his expertise. Please continue writing, I also read your column in the Manila Standard. Thank you. Hidolfo Nepomuceno, [email protected] November 05, 2004 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |