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Another
subcontractor of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway
Project has written the Bases Conversion Development
Authority (BCDA) chairman, retired Gen.Narciso Abaya,
seeking his help regarding the company’s legal claim
against Hazama-Taisei-Nippon Steel Joint Venture, one of
the two main contractors of the highway project.
Anthony
Arevalo, president of First Worldwide Marketing Corp. (FWMC),
a turf-grass and erosion-control specialist that worked
on the road embankments, has filed suit against Hazama,
asking for remuneration for manpower and equipment which
were not used during the original one-year contract
period, and for project acceleration since it mobilized
more manpower and equipment per Hazama’s request and was
given tight work schedules when Hazama itself failed to
meet its own work timetable. FWMC told General Abaya
that being a small company, it had incurred losses due
to the delay in the release of payments by Hazama
despite the completion of their contract.
Hazama
is under fire for being unprofessional and irresponsible
for withholding payments to its subcontractors. Hazama
had bagged a P15-billion contract out of the P25-billion
total project cost, but subcontractors are still waiting
for the promised payments. It owes EEI P100 million; CMC
Ravena, P60 million; and the province of Tarlac, for
local taxes and quarrying fees, P15 million. The House
of Representatives is investigating the matter, and
rightly so, because it’s taxpayers’ money that’s
involved, since the project is funded by a Japan Bank
for International Cooperation loan. Other smaller
subcontractors are reportedly still unpaid and are
contemplating legal action, as well, if Hazama continues
to stall.
As
project owner, the BCDA should do something about this
nonpayment. General Abaya should intervene now so that
the subcontractors can be given what’s rightfully due
them.
Land to
the landless
Up for
deliberation in Congress is a bill seeking to extend the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for five
more years. The CARP law, enacted in 1988, has already
been extended, by 10 years, in 1998. Farmers’ groups, as
well as the clergy, have been asking the government to
extend CARP, and President Arroyo has already certified
as urgent the CARP extension bill, so it’s quite
possibly just a matter of time before it is passed by
both houses of Congress. But the matter of funding is
still up in the air, with varying estimates of how much
an extension would cost. It could be from P60 million if
the extension is three years and as much as P200 billion
if it’s seven years.
While
it’s the Department of Agrarian Reform that’s mainly
responsible for implementing CARP, from land acquisition
to distribution and program-beneficiaries development,
under which it provides a wide array of support
services, such as seeds, credit, postharvest facilities
and farm-to-market roads, not many among the public are
aware that the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR) also plays a part in land
distribution.
In fact,
on June 12, the DENR will distribute at least 17,000
land-ownership entitlements, including free patents,
certificates of entitlement lot allocation (Cela) and
special patents to qualified land tillers and farm
occupants. This will take place in the country’s 13
regions, as well as in the National Capital Region
(NCR).
The
activity is timed for Independence Day, and the choice
of the date is significant. “As the country celebrates
its day of freedom, we also want thousands of our
countrymen to be liberated from the clutches of poverty
by giving them a piece of land which they can proudly
call their own,” says Environment Secretary Lito Atienza.
The department has made it a priority to provide land
tenure to poor families, especially those in the
countryside, through the equitable distribution of
parcels of land and the facilitation of the issuance of
free patents, Cela and other land-ownership documents.
Land ownership for the poor is one of the commitments of
the present administration, emphasizes Atienza, and the
DENR will soon review big land cases and ascertain the
status of huge tracts chunks of land which have lain
idle for ages with the end view of making them
productive.
If you
thought agrarian reform was limited to the rural areas,
then you’re in for a surprise because even the NCR is
also subject to CARP, with some 350 Cela to be
distributed by the DENR. The department will award a
special patent for the distribution of the Parola
Compound in favor of the National Housing Authority and
sign 252 deeds of sale for Taguig residents to give them
security of tenure.
The
politics of power
By now
it’s becoming starkly clear that the Government Service
Insurance System-Manila Electric Co. word war and
boardroom battle is less about consumer welfare than
power politics in all its glory, with administration
allies firing broadsides against the power utility and
ganging up on the Lopezes while keeping eerily silent on
allegations of irregularities in the state-run National
Power Corp.
The
details are scant, but our information is that the
current administration’s fusillade has roots deep in
history. Bad blood between the Arroyo and Lopez families
dates back to the Commonwealth period, apparently to the
time when both clans were involved in sugar, the Lopezes
in Iloilo and the Arroyos on nearby Negros Island. We’re
still trying to piece together the story, but it would
be interesting to find out how this long-standing family
feud plays out in the days ahead, seven decades later.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com. |
