Thursday, December 11, 2008

Queer as queer can be (Philcomsat)

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Queer as queer can be
Sunday, 05 02, 2006

The government owns 4,727 shares representing 34.9 percent of Philippine Overseas Telecommunications Corp. (POTC), the parent company of Philcomsat; and 28 percent of Philcomsat Holdings Corp. (PHC), through the 80-percent ownership of Philcomsat in this subsidiary. Nice enough percentages, one might say. But when one considers that the government earned cash dividends of about P800 million from 1986 to 1997, but none at all from 1998 to date, one gets a feeling that these companies are headed for a spectacular crash.
In 1998, when the intra-corporate controversy in Philcomsat was aborning, the value of government shares was estimated at P1.4 billion, at a book value of P296,000 for each of its 4,727 shares. Five years later, the adjusted book value per share was reportedly closer to P37,000, or a measly P175 million for the government. In 1991, Philcomsat hauled revenues of about P954 million. In 2003, it pulled in a niggardly P33 million.

What happened? Where did all that mind-blowing amount of money go? Somebody tells me some relatives of you-know-who are involved. About time the committee of Sen. Dick Gordon investigates. Sen. Miriam Santiago filed a resolution precisely to look into this queer business direction.
The face of a collegial body, such as the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), is presented to the public through its chairman or its appointed spokesman.
PCGG chairman Camilo Sabio is much too urbane a gentleman, and cannot stomach being in the center of media for mere exposure’s sake. The other commissioners are similarly media-shy, except commissioner Ricardo Abcede. By default, Abcede has become the talking head of the PCGG.
Whatever prompted Rep. Chiz Escudero to admonish this talking head during the recent hearing on the PCGG budget and to hopefully wish that Abcede “realize the folly of his ways” and that he would “be placed in his proper place” is an indictment of the man. Abcede had snubbed the hearing, and Chiz was mad as a bat out of hell, unable to vent his ire on the commissioner who stood between approval of the PCGG budget and its being reduced to P1.
Abcede has become too high-profile for comfort ever since he fielded the possibility of a compromise over the Marcos wealth. In addition, he has been recently quoted as saying the PCGG “supports the Nieto Group” in the POTC/Philcomsat/PHC row, and is reported as having been the sole representative of the PCGG in what was touted as a stockholders meeting of the POTC last April 24. Queer developments, indeed.
Jake Macasaet has a very valid question: How can a decision already executed be (again!) the subject of another motion for issuance of a writ of execution? Certainly, there is nothing more to execute after the first execution, as lawyer Victor Africa would say. And as Dylan Thomas poetically says: “After the first death, there is no other.” But here comes somebody from the PCGG who screams, “Pwehdeh!”
Notwithstanding a decision of the Supreme Court declaring with finality the validity of the compromise agreement between Potenciano Ilusorio and the government, Abcede appears to have stumbled upon this shaggy-dog mongrel of a remedy to keep the Nieto Group’s stranglehold over POTC/Philcomsat/PHC.
To paraphrase the elementary-school rhyme: Of all the queer dogs that I ever did see, this mongrel is the queerest by far to me.

Outside of speaking in behalf of the PCGG, Abcede frequently appears on television defending the acts of President Arroyo, particularly her initiatives disguised as the people’s. This probably makes Abcede feel good all over, and that is a grace I will concede to him. After all, was it not he who hogged the TV sets during the campaign in 2004, on issues against FPJ? The plot thickens — and if I may be permitted to disgrace the cliché, gets queerer in every subsequent act.
Trust Jake to call a spoon a spade. Let me quote him: “Abcede is very much around and is in fact making trouble. He is getting his reward like everyone does in this government if he supports the anomalies of the administration.”
But there is a disclaimer from Rep. Mikey Arroyo, during the hearing on the PCGG budget: “...whatever Commissioner Abcede says and does with regard to his extracurricular activities aside from working as a commissioner of the PCGG is his business and not the position of the entire body.” There. The mission of the PCGG is to insure good government, and nothing else. Amen.
On May 4, the PHC stockholders will finally meet under the stern gaze of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Hopefully, the stockholders will vote freely, including the Ilusorio Family with their 13 percent and the 5 percent ceded to them by the government.
But, wait. There is another mongrel of a remedy in what Alvin Capino reports as a PHC stockholder who is asking for the cancellation of the May 4 meeting. Queer, indeed!
The mysterious stockholder who is trying to stop the meeting most probably comes from the group hard-pressed to explain why PHC has been going down under their watch. So where’s the queer thing in that?
May 1 came and went without any incident. Queer, is it not? The May 4 meeting of the PHC stockholders should provide more fireworks, especially as this is the only opportunity for anyone to ask those in control of the PHC on how they have queered its otherwise golden opportunities, and remove them if necessary.

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