‘The net intended effect is to tie down the hands of the incoming administration.’
IT’S 26 days before Benigno Simeon Aquino III takes over as the newly-elected president of the Republic. But in the past and in the coming 26 days more, greedy men and women in cahoots with one another will do everything possible to "clear their desks, so to speak, of any incriminating evidence that might pin them down – for plunder, for graft, or for plain incompetence to stop graft, and all of the above.
This is the reason for some 200 midnight appointments. This is the reason for so many more midnight deals that will be rushed on top of those that had been rushed. Everything will be done in stealth. The net intended effect is to tie down the hands of the incoming administration, caught in the vise of done deals the rejection of which will create legal difficulties.
To begin with, there are the appointments allegedly signed by Doña Gloria in one day. The erudite Fr. Joaquin Bernas wrote in his column a few days back that there are two steps in the appointment process --- the offer, and the acceptance thereof. There is no appointment until the offer of appointment is accepted by the appointee. Thus we take note of the delicadeza displayed by Anita Carpon, the manicurist appointed to the board of trustees of the Pag-ibig housing fund. She shames many of those more lettered, more highly schooled, but apparently quite uneducated.
Still, assumption to public office is not complete until after the appointee takes his oath of office. Only when the public officer has satisfied the prerequisite of an oath does his right to enter into the position become plenary and complete. Until that oath, he has no right.
So, given this argument even if the appointments were made on or before March 9, but the oathsof office were made subsequent to March 10, the appointments are legally questionable. This is the reason oath of offices are required to be submitted to the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Office of the President (OP), as the appointing power.
Now read this and gnash your teeth:
My mole in the bureaucracy of Malacañang told me that the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) has been calling up GOCCs to inquire on when the recent appointees of Mrs. Arroyo actually took their oath of offices and if and when these oaths were actually transmitted to the Civil Service Commission and the Office of the President.
See the stealth? It would do well for the incoming administration to scrutinize each and every document of appointment and oath, if any, once it takes hold of office. Thereafter, the new president could rescind their appointments. Or ask them to resign. If they had been appointed to offices which by law have term limits, then the technical errors between appointment, authenticity of oath and assumption to office may be carefully analyzed, and thereafter questioned in court.
Additionally, with the support of the public fresh on the back of its sails, the new presidency could exert pressure, ranging from soft persuasion using back-channeling efforts, all the way to hard pressure, as in disallowing financial transactions by ordering the banks not to honor the signatures of midnight appointees. There are many other ways of skinning the proverbial cat. A new mandate cannot be allowed to sunder in front of clearly immoral acts of a dead regime.
As a lawyer-friend wrote in reaction to the plethora of "midnight" appointments callously and stealthily done, "If Noynoy does not defy those midnight appointments, he could be a lameduck on Day One". Clearly, the new president will not allow that.
We have been reliably informed too, by a government official at that, of moves within the Bangko Sentral intended to "save the day" for their inexcusable negligence at accepting spurious land titles, as well as worthless properties, to guarantee payment of a 4.5 billion accommodation to the then floundering, now defunct Villar-owned Capitol Bank.
The continued silence of the Bangko Sentral to explain how they got conned into taking worthless properties and titles of questionable provenance in payment for such a huge amount of public money will soon be challenged when Congress convenes under a new president who wants full transparency and full disclosure. The Blue Ribbon Committee as well as the Committee on Banks and Financial Institutions, whoever their respective chairs will be, await the explanation of the BSP on Norzagaray and other issues.
The information we have received though is that the Bank has been in quiet negotiation with the defeated Nacionalista Party presidential candidate or his corporate subalterns, to offer other collateral and swap these for the obviously unworthy. Trying to sweep the dirt under the rug? Will such an effort, if it could be complied with, erase the stigma upon the institution? And how could that legally be done, all in stealth? Questions and more questions that Congress will soon ask of the leadership of the Bank of Banks.
And additionally, the Bank will soon have to explain to the public, through Congress, how it is that they have been outsourcing our paper currency, nay, even the minting of our coins, for years and years on end, from favored suppliers and printers abroad, this, despite the presence of a security printing plant in Quezon City put up and maintained by the taxpayer at great expense.
The Bangko Sentral will likewise have to explain why it will demonetize in three years the current banknotes in favor of a New Generation Currency which it is rushing for introduction by the end of this year. And why again, these banknotes will be imported from foreign printers, at a staggering cost, even as their 32-year-ld printing machines needed replacement years ago? Even numismatists and history aficionados will likely question why we feature tourist spots and animals in the obverse side of banknotes whose front will sport the faces of Philippine presidents and heroes.
If the intent is to promote our tourist spots, what good will such do when the peso is acceptable only within the metes and bounds of these islands, unlike the American dollar or the euro, which are utilized in various countries. Will a French or German traveller, for instance, see the tarsier and the Chocolate Hills in Lyon or Dusseldorf? Nope. Only when they are already in the Philippines, when they exchange their euro for Philippine pesos. So what tourist-promotion value will printing these natural wonders have?
But, as usual, what the Bangko Sentral’s "independent" officials want, they get. They do as they please, ensconced as they are in the "secrecy" of their vault-like headquarters by the Bay. Vamos a ver.
In a regime of absolute amorality, that is possible. In a new order where good old-fashioned values of accountability, transparency and good governance will reign, must the Bank be spared?
LITO BANAYO
MALAYA Column for Friday, 04 June 2010
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