By Psyche Roxas-Mendoza / Special to the BusinessMirror
Second of three parts
FROM Cory to Noynoy—Much of the programs and projects of the late President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos and former First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos survived the strongman’s ouster 30 years ago. Not all laws and presidential decrees created in the years of martial rule were repealed; not all Marcos-created agencies were essentially abolished.
In Diliman, Quezon City, a long and wide conference table, with accompanying wooden chairs, dominates an otherwise sparsely decorated but spotlessly clean and spacious receiving room at the second floor of the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC).
Pointing to the conference table, Dr. Julius A. Lecciones, PCMC executive director and current country coordinator of My Child Matters Philippines, said: “Lamesa pa ito ni Imelda ha. Actually this [receiving] room ay pahingahan ni Imelda noon. Andyan pa ’yung kama niya [This (conference) table was used by Imelda. This entire room used to be where Imelda rested. Her bed is still here].”
Heart and kidney
LECCIONES reiterated that PCMC highly relies on the subsidy of the government because of their many charity patients.
“We could reduce our charity beds, but that would be going against our Charter,” Lecciones said. “The bed allocation of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute [NKTI] and the Philippine Heart Center [PHC] is 90-percent paying patients and 10-percent charity patients. Ayaw nilang aminin [They do not want to admit it] but that’s the truth. Ang Department of Health [DoH], pinuna na sila [has called their attention]. Because if that is your mix, then you are operating like a private hospital.”
Via the BIR Road, the PCMC is only eight minutes away by land travel from the PHC, a treatment and research center dedicated to heart and allied diseases.
It was created by the Marcos administration in 1975, three years after the declaration of martial law, at an initial appropriation of P10 million to cover maintenance and operation expenses.
Like the PCMC, the presidential decree that created the PHC carried a pro-poor provision. Section 4, No. 8 of PHC’s purposes and objectives states: To extend medical and cardiological services to the general public, to help prevent, relieve or alleviate the innumerable cardio-vascular afflictions and maladies of the people, especially the poor and less fortunate in life, without regard to race, creed, color or political belief.
Service for the poor, however, was no longer present in Presidential Decree 1832, which created on January 16, 1981, the NKTI, then known as the National Kidney Foundation.
Lecciones revealed that the 3.7-hectare lot, where the PCMC stands, is owned by the National Housing Authority (NHA)—an attached agency of the First Lady’s Ministry of Human Settlements (MHS) that was later transferred in 1986 to the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) under the Office of the President, after the MHS was abolished.
“We wanted the government to donate the land, but the NHA did not agree. Congress then gave money so we [PCMC] can pay NHA almost a billion pesos for the land. And we got another P600 million for 150 additional service [charity]-patient beds,” Lecciones said.
Super charity agency
ON January 17, 1973, less than a year after the declaration of martial law, the 1935 Constitution was replaced by the 1973 Constitution, in accordance with Presidential Proclamation 1102 issued by then- President Ferdinand E. Marcos. The form of government in the Philippines shifted from presidential to parliamentary.
An Interim Batasang Pambansa (National Assembly) replaced Congress five years later, with Marcos remaining as President.
The shift in form of government resulted in changes that rippled through various government agencies, including the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).
Today much of what is contained in the existing PCSO Charter is the result of executive and legislative efforts committed in the name of the agency during the years when the Philippines was under martial law.
Batas Pambansa (BP) 42, enacted on September 24, 1979, brought extensive and far-reaching amendments to the PCSO Charter (Republic Act [RA] 1169), which was passed during the administration of President Ramon Magsaysay on June 18, 1954.
Marcos overhaul
On September 24, 1979, a major overhaul of the PCSO charter took effect on the strength of BP 42. The law instituted sweeping amendments to RA 1169, transforming the PCSO into a virtual super revenue-generating charity agency.
BP 42 carried three major amendments. The first pertained to the nature of the charity agency (Section 1), the second referred to the apportionments of PCSO revenues (Section 6) and the third covered the powers and functions of its Board of Directors (Section 9).
Section 1 of BP 42 expanded to a great degree the corporate character of the PCSO. Prior to BP 42, the charity institution’s revenue generating efforts solely involved the holding of sweepstakes races and lotteries.
But under Section 1 of BP 42, the PCSO is allowed to “engage in health- and welfare-related investments, programs, projects and activities, which may be profit-oriented.”
The only limitation to this provision is that “such investments will not compete with the private sector in areas where investments are adequate, as may be determined by the National Economic and Development Authority [Neda].”
The PCSO can, likewise, “undertake any other activity that will enhance its funds-generation operations and funds-management capabilities,” for as long as this activity does not compete with the private sector in areas, where the Neda has declared that investments are already adequate.
All profit-oriented and health-related investments, programs, projects and activities were “subject to the approval of the Minister of Human Settlements.”
In addition, Section 1 of BP 42 scrapped the need for the consent of the Commission on Appointments for all of the president’s board of director appointees to the PCSO. In effect, the president had sole power in determining board appointments, as well as in fixing the compensation and term of office of all members of the PCSO board.
BP 42 adjusted PCSO allocations accruing from sweepstakes net receipts. It enlarged operating expenses (from 10 percent to 15 percent) and raised funds for charity from 25 percent to 30 percent, while removing the 6.5-percent allocation for provinces and cities that were previously used to maintain provincial, city and municipal hospitals. Unclaimed prizes were considered forfeited after a period of one year and made part of the charity fund.
In consultation with the MHS, the board of directors decided on the utilization of the charity fund, with the approval of the Office of the President.
The PCSO board has the power to apply part of the contributions to the charity fund to approved investments, but in no case shall funds for investments exceed 10 percent of the net receipts from the sale of sweepstakes tickets in any given year.
BP 42 broadened the powers and functions of the PCSO board of directors to include the capability to “contract loans, credits and indebtedness, whether domestic or foreign, on such terms and conditions as it may deem appropriate for the accomplishment of its purposes, subject to applicable laws, rules and regulations.”
Under Section 9 of RA 1169, “the PCSO is only authorized to hold lotteries once a month during the months when there are no sweepstakes draws and races.”
BP 42 repealed this specific provision and placed the determination of the frequency and manner of lotteries and other similar activities at the discretion of the PCSO Board.
Marcos to Cory
THE late President Corazon Aquino, and all presidents that came after her, ran the PCSO according to the policies, rules and regulations that, for the most part, were put in effect during the Marcos dictatorship.
From the eigth (1987) to the 16th Congress (2016), a timeline of 29 years after democracy was deemed returned to the country by way of the 1986 Edsa People Power, no law or presidential decree pertaining to the PCSO—that was crafted or passed during the Marcos years—was repealed or amended.
To this day, the charity agency’s charter states that the board’s disbursement of PCSO charity fund for priority programs, needs and requirements in specific communities shall be made “in consultation with the MHS,” more than 30 years after the MHS has ceased to exist.
The charter, likewise, still states the power of the MHS to approve all profit-oriented and health-related investments, programs, projects and activities.
In his April 1968 privilege speech at the Senate, the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. saw the urgent need to reform the PCSO and recommended concrete measures for these reforms to be achieved.
One of the most relevant reform proposals the elder Aquino put
forward was the representation of the minority political party in the PCSO board of directors.
“The minority party, whichever it is, should be represented in the PCSO board of directors to prevent undue partisanship in the sweepstakes doles,” Aquino said.
It is a recommendation that no president—not even Aquino’s wife, the late President Corazon Aquino, nor his only son President Benigno S. Aquino III—had moved to implement.
To be concluded
Image credits: Nonie Reyes