Conclusion
The PLDT case
WAS there a cover up?
The question of cover up cropped up soon after former President Fidel V. Ramos took over the presidency and promptly ordered the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) to take majority control of the 11-man board of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT).
Ramos’ order confirmed, in effect, that in former President Corazon C. Aquino’s regime, the PLDT was not placed under PCGG control despite evidence showing that 26.9 percent of PLDT was owned by the Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp. Inc. (PTIC).
Prime Holdings, Inc. (PHI), which Marcos owned through his front multibillionaire Jose Yao Campos and his nominees, controlled the PTIC’s 46 percent.
Since the PTIC owned 26.9 percent of the PLDT, and since PHI controlled 46 percent of the PTIC, this meant that Marcos owned 12.5 percent, or 2.4 million, shares of the PLDT worth more than P4.3 billion at that time.
Campos, who fronted a substantial portion of the Marcos business empire, surrendered the PLDT shares to the PCGG in April 1986 under a compromise agreement.
Rolando Gapud, former president of the Security Bank and Trust Co. (SBTC), known as the “Fort Knox” of the Marcoses, also confirmed Marcos’ shares in the PLDT before he (Gapud) was allowed to escape, purportedly after getting death threats.
Through the power of sequestration, the Aquino administration took control of the SBTC and the more than P1 billion in cash and other assets, which former Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile exposed to have been subsequently dissipated. Despite the spotty issue in the PLDT, the Aquino administration did not touch the PLDT shares, thus triggering speculations that Mrs. Aquino had secretly interfered in the PLDT’s favor and had kept it under wraps despite her much-publicized policy of transparency.
After Ramos’s order to Magtanggol C. Gunigundo to take control of the PLDT shares, the PLDT and the PCGG subsequently forged a temporary agreement to avoid a possible legal confrontation that may disrupt the firm’s multibillion-peso expansion program.
The agreement allowed the PCGG to have six government representatives in PLDT’s 11-man board.
According to then-PCGG chairman Gunigundo, the agreement (he called it modus vivendi) was good only for that year, pending decision by the Supreme Court on the issue of ownership of the Marcos shares, which were disputed by the heirs of Don Ramon Cojuangco, the father of then-PLDT President Antonio Cojuangco.
By comparison to the inaction on the PLDT, the Aquino administration, through the PCGG, promptly sequestered the shares of Eduardo Cojuangco in San Miguel Corp. (SMC), thus confirming the news that spread around that Mrs. Aquino had indeed maintained a double standard of justice, one favoring the Cojuangcos in the PLDT and the other punishing the Cojuangcos in the SMC, and had covered up for it to avoid public scandal.
Official records showed that between 1973 and 1982, a total of P9.7 billion in coconut levies was collected under Presidential Decree 276. Of this amount, P2.4 billion was paid out as legitimate subsidies to coconut refineries and other entities.
One of Imelda R. Marcos’ projects was the Technological Resource Center Foundation Inc. (TRCFI). Initially funded in the 1980s with P20 million from the coconut levies which was originally intended for the scholarship program for deserving children of coconut farmers, the TRCFI grew into a multibillion-peso non-governmental organization.
The foundation was registered with the SEC with Mrs. Marcos as the founding chairman, Onofre D. Corpuz as vice chairman and Jose Conrado Benitez, Edmundo Reyes and Jose Yulo as board members.
In addition to the initial budget, the TRCFI received grants and aids of more than P230 million from other countries. After a few years the TRCFI’s assets grew to more than P1 billion.
Its assets included P14 million in cash, four plush villages (Ecology I, Ecology II, Ecology III and Ecoville), a building and a big prime lot at the corner of Buendia Avenue and Edsa, seven staff houses in Purok Madera Imelda, a big hatchery farm in Parañaque, bank investments, a plane, a helicopter and a fleet of expensive cars, among other things.
After the Edsa Revolution, the Aquino administration quietly took over control of the TRCFI, replaced Mrs. Marcos and other trustees, and named her Executive Secretary Joker Arroyo as chairman; her relative Herminio S. Aquino as vice chairman; and Fulgencio Factoran, Jose M. Kalaw and Pablo de Borja as board members.
Unlike other assets that the Marcos family had something to do with, the TRCFI was not sequestered.
But, over the next few months, some of its multibillion-peso assets disappeared one after the other. And, on February 17, 1987, the name of the TRCFI was mysteriously changed to Philippine Development Alternatives Foundation (PDAF) and was registered with SEC under No. 72296. Then SEC Associate Commissioner Rosario N. Lopez approved the registration. The names of Arroyo and Factoran no longer appeared in the registration.
Before Mrs. Aquino left the presidency, Executive Secretary Catalino Macaraeg quietly turned over PDAF to PCGG Chairman David Castro without a complete inventory of its assets.
The PCGG filed antigraft charges before the Ombudsman against Mrs. Marcos and Benitez for diverting the P20 million coconut levy scholarship funds to the TRCFI.
Strangely, the PCGG did not implead the people who took over the TRCFI, who dissipated its assets, and who changed its name to PDAF.
Retrospectively, there’s a need for the Duterte administration to have a second look at some of these PCGG cases for economic and social restitution and punish those who violated the law once and for all.
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.