SENATE TO CALL BISHOPS, NOT CONGRESSMEN TO PCSO HEARINGS
MANILA, JULY 5, 2011 (MANILA STANDARD) SENATORS would not summon congressmen to answer for the funds they received from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office out of inter-parliamentary courtesy, but the Catholic bishops who received such largesse were fair game, Senator Panfilo Lacson said Sunday.
Lacson, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, said the bishops who received sports utility vehicles from the government sweepstakes office would be summoned to a hearing Wednesday.
The Senate panel will also call current and former members of the sweepstakes office board as well as officials of the Commission on Audit, who say the disbursements to a number of archdioceses and congressmen during the previous administration have resulted in millions of pesos in losses to the government.
Margarita Juico, chairman of the sweepstakes office, had earlier accused then President Gloria Arroyo of using the agency's funds to win support from the Catholic Church, and that seven bishops received Mitsubishi Pajeros.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said the bishops "have no immunity against the operation of the law," and they would be made to explain what their luxury vehicles were used for.
"These are public funds, and these should be accounted for," he said.
Lacson said congressmen would most likely not appear before the Blue Ribbon committee, but the irregular disbursements involved the former President and her political allies.
He said Camarines Sur Rep. Diosdado Arroyo, Mrs. Arroyo's son, received P68 million that was used as pork barrel in his district.
The other lawmakers who received funds from the charity office were Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez (P68 million), Negros Occidental Rep. George Arnaiz (P11.5 million), Bulacan Rep. Maria Victoria Sy-Alvarado (P8 million), Nueva Ecija Rep. Rodolfo Antonino (P5 million), Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (P5 million), and former Bulacan and Cotabato Reps. Lorna Silverio (P1.2 million) and Emmylou Talino Mendoza (P1.2 million).
Butuan Bishop Juan de dios Pueblos, who sought President Benigno Aquino III's resignation last month, also signed a voucher amounting to more than P1.7 million for the purchase of a Pajero, and would be summoned to the hearing, Lacson said.
Pueblos was among the first to criticize President Aquino for appointing his friends, classmates and shooting biddies to juicy government posts.
Lacson said there were at least seven bishops who received high-end vehicles or cash, but the charity office has refused to name them. He denied any connection between the investigation and the Catholic Church's opposition to the administration's program on reproductive health.
"There can never be a connection between the RH bill and the Blue Ribbon investigation. It's just like saying the government is harassing the Church," Lacson said.
The Palace on Sunday urged the members of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines to follow the lead of Abra Bishop Leopoldo Jaucian, who admitted having received a Mitsubishi Strada pick-up from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.
Deputy presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte made the statement even as she denied the Palace had a hand in the revelations at the charity office.
"We appreciate the statements made by the bishop of Abra that he needed the vehicle to go around his archdiocese," Valte said.
"It was a very frank and candid statement. After all, the Commission on Audit is only asking what happened to the PCSO funds."
Valte also denied that the coming investigation had any connection to the reproductive health bill pending in Congress.
Earlier, CBCP president Bishop Nereo Odchimar accused the administration of singling out Catholic leaders.
"There are other beneficiaries who are not from the Catholic Church," he said.
"That is why others are asking why they are pinpointing Catholic bishops. Is it because some of the bishops are critical? Is it because of the bishops' position on the RH bill?" Rey T. Salita and Joyce Pangco Pañares
FROM DAILY TRIBUNE
When wolves smell meat EDITORIAL
When Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago blew her top during the heated exchange of accusations between supposed whistle-blowers led by businessman Joey de Venecia and former government executive Jun Lozada and the accused brokers of the lucrative National Broadband Network (NBN) deal led by former Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Benjamin Abalos, she said that the controversy was nothing but an argument over kickbacks.
De Venecia and Lozada supposedly squealed on the NBN kickbacks after they lost out on the contract that Abalos bagged for a Chinese supplier.
Now we have a seemingly similar situation regarding the administration of Noynoy and the bishops over the cash cow Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).
Margie Juico, the current PCSO chairman, did not fire off those strings of exposes against Church leaders and now certain legislators who received multimillion-peso donations and gifts of luxury vehicles out of a crusading spirit.
It happened after former PCSO chairman Manoling Morato, who is closely identified with the Catholic Church hierarchy, accused her of irregularities at the sweepstakes agency.
Among other accusations, Morato charged Juico of nepotism for maintaining her son as her chief of staff with salaries coming out of the PCSO. Morato added Juico's brother Emmet Penson had cornered the supplies contract for wheelchairs that the PCSO mostly donates and her husband Philip Juico, a close friend of the Aquino clan, controls the public relations funds of the agency.
Morato also alleged that millions of pesos change hands every day among small town lottery operators that doubles up as jueteng lords and the group of Juico facilitated by an underling of one of the PCSO directors.
Morato said the supposed revelations of Juico now are meant as a smokescreen to the many irregularities happening at the PCSO.
The direct attacks on bishops, indeed, make its look like the current crop of PCSO officials is determined to clean up the agency. Who would dare clash with the leaders of the Church for such a gray area as donations, even of luxury vehicles which are obvious bribes. The bishops can always claim that the vehicles even if they are the only ones who use these are being utilized as part of their social projects.
That Malacañang had made it known that it is squarely behind Juico only added more suspicion to her tirades. Certain bishops, including those now notoriously branded as the Pajero bishops, for the same named vehicles they received as gifts from the PCSO, said the allegations have the ultimate goal of weakening the foundation of the local Catholic Church insinuating that it is related to the current skirmish between Noynoy and the bishops over the Reproductive Health (RH) bill.
The bishops argued their acceptance of "donations" from the PCSO is not uncommon since they run to the agency frequently to seek financial assistance for projects.
Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, one of the magnificent seven Pajero bishops, even quoted a statement of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin that he would not hesitate to accept money from the devil to help the poor in answer to criticisms that the Church accepts money raised from state-sponsored gambling operations.
The bitter confrontation boils down to access to PCSO and its huge funds coming from a "replenishable" fountain from the weekly and daily lottery operations ran by the agency.
Juico and Noynoy seem to be sending a message to Church leaders about the huge money and the not so spiritual windfalls they stand to miss if they continue to defy Noy's "straight path" to wherever.
Of course, the Palace threat to criminally charge the bishops is a bluff but the Juico-Noynoy ruse would reveal itself too early without it.
It is apparent that the Church-backed Morato is exerting efforts to oust Juico and place somebody else friendly to them to head the strategic cash cow of an agency; the Juicos with the backing of Noynoy, in turn, are fighting back to protect a long-sought turf.
It's a classic "away sa kickback" as Santiago would harshly put it.
It's two packs of wolves battling for a rich carcass.
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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