E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Undersecretary Joc-joc
Sunday, 11 02, 2008
In early 2000, I assumed the post of undersecretary for administration and finance at the Department of Agriculture (DA) during the Estrada Administration. When Gloria Arroyo ascended to power I was immediately thrown out of the department. Not that I wanted to stick around, hoping that some political crumbs will fall my way. Given my role at Malacañang during those tumultuous days of Jan. 19 to 21, 2001, I knew I was not welcome in the Arroyo Administration. I knew very well I had to go. But I thought it would be a decent gesture to wait for my replacement, formally turn over to him the office, and impress upon him what one in the position of “undersecretary for admin and finance” can do for the country.
And so while I cleared my desk of personal papers I wondered who my replacement would be. Would he be some doddering old foggy snatched out of some obscure position or a no-nonsense, brilliant young man who could manage for the Agriculture secretary the multi-billion funds allocated to the DA under the General Appropriations Act? How would he handle the funds intended for irrigation, post-harvest facilities, farm-to market roads, subsidy for farmers, livestock propagation, farm inputs (including fertilizers), etcetera? Would he be up to the additional duties of supervising several corporations — including Quedancor — involved in agriculture financing and development, and manage well the foreign grants and loans for fishery and agriculture projects?
And I would tell him that the post is most coveted “since you are practically the department… you handle billions of DA funds and you have control of all the projects.” The undersecretary, upon instructions from the Agriculture secretary, does all these in coordination with the members of Congress and the local chief executives, who are the beneficiaries of the projects and recipients of humongous agriculture development funds in behalf of their constituents.
The funds and projects were well-managed during the term of then Agriculture Secretary Edgardo Angara. I was Secretary Angara’s implementor and facilitator, while he had complete control over what I was doing. The funds were spent well for the rightful beneficiaries, and the projects could be seen everywhere. Secretary Angara, in accordance with the agricultural development plan he had mapped out for the department, gave instructions on how the funds would be spent and the projects undertaken. It was a simple operation, with a single-minded purpose: Spend the funds and undertake the projects solely for agricultural development. And to make sure that the funds and projects went to where they were legitimately bound, and the projects were actually undertaken, Angara even constituted a Project Monitoring Group that went around the country, to the farthest barangays where funds and projects were destined, to make sure everything was according to plan.
I was mulling over all these things in my mind — would my replacement find the info useful? — when I got a call from a friend (I thought he was anyway) who had inched his way as a legal adviser to the new president. With just enough trace of impatience and arrogance, he asked me what was taking me too long to get out of my office. He said I had to leave at once, because somebody was coming in to manage (that’s correct, “manage”) the new secretary of Agriculture. Just like that.
I never got the chance to turn over the office to my replacement, the now infamous Jocelyn “Joc-joc” Bolante. Pity, we could have exchanged some polite banter, like asking each other why our parents saddled us with feminine sounding names. Or we could have shaken hands — which under the present circumstances I would be loath to do.
Whoever put in Joc-joc in the bureaucracy knew very well how important and powerful that office could be. Call it a best-laid plan — although others would say serendipity, if you will — but that is exactly the best way to describe how Joc-joc eventually came about to be involved in the fertilizer scam and the Quedancor scam. And possibly a third one involving a loan from Spain for the purchase of Spanish-built patrol vessels which the Senate never got to investigate.
Marlene Esperat, the crusader that she was, knew a lot about these, and she had the documents to back up her charges. Unfortunately, somebody silenced her forever.
Joc-joc has returned. From what I know how a undersecretary works to implement projects funded out of DA funds, Joc-joc certainly knows many things.
Former Senate President Drilon’s revelation that he saw Joc-joc with a huge brown envelope stashed with cash, and doling out the cash to local politicians in his hotel suite in a southern city during the 2004 elections, confirms everything we know now from the Magsaysay Report on the fertilizer scam: Joc-joc was the principal architect of the scam.
It will be interesting to know, straight from Joc-joc’s mouth, how the fertilizer fund was spent; who supplied the fertilizers spiked with water; which politicians received the largesse; and, upon whose orders the fund was spent.
After the fertilizer scam, let’s see how Quedancor went to the pits. And I am giving a hint on another: Honorable senators and congressmen, take a look at the acquisition of the 14 Spanish-built patrol vessels: How many were actually delivered? Of those delivered, how many are still operational; How many are rusting in peace somewhere in some lonely bay? Who benefited from the overprice? Who was instrumental in gagging Congress from looking into this?
Marlene Esperat knew a lot about these. Now that she is gone, and Joc-joc is here, he could shed some light. Unless Joc-joc had contacted some form of Alzheimer’s disease, or through some unhappy accident at St. Luke’s, he, like Marlene, slips into “that undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns.”
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