A TODAY editorial
06 March 2002
We hate to sound uncharitable, but we cannot let pass their maudlin open letter to newspapers without pointing out what they have missed: in fact, they missed the entire point raised in all the hue and cry about the PEACe bonds brouhaha that has caught their organization, the CODE-NGO, in the center of the storm.
We have to say this because, unless it is pointed out to them, the people at CODE-NGO and their friends who wonder why people who do charity work should be subjected to endless bashing, will continue to ignore the one important thing they must do to set it right. That is, they simply have to return the money and acknowledge that while the intention was good, the process was wrong. On second thought, just returning the money will be good enough. But that includes Fat Man and his chum who got PhP200 million for ‘inventing’ the ordinary bond.
That said, this is not a case of us worrying that Mrs. Marissa Camaco Reyes and Mr. Dan Songco or their friends have misused or will misuse the money. Though it was at least curious that the very first beneficiary of the PEACe bond PhP1.4 billion bonanza should be Ayala Corporation’s water subsidiary, Manila Water, to the tune of PhP100 million. More basic than that, this is a case of misappropriation of public funds for private charity, which our laws forbid despite the gallant, convoluted and ultimately totally ignorant defense put up by the CODE-NGO’s friends in big business, in the Treasury (though not behind its back) and among the ranks of civil socialites.
We are not interested in seeing them take an ‘indefinite leave’ as they announced on Monday. They can stay in their NGO; although, given the rancor that we understand their obstinacy has stirred among their concerned NGO friends who called it ‘impermissible rent-seeking’, we understand their reluctance to stay on. But what the public needs is for the money made from this illegal exercise to be returned. We are not just talking here of the PhP1.4 billion windfall made by CODE-NGO. We are talking as well of the PhP200 million paid out to Mr. Red Mayo and his colleague Mr. Bobby Guevarra for allegedly designing the most controversial and suspicious features of the bond package, and the PhP200 million that was thought at first to have gone to RCBC (the underwriter), but which RCBC denies having gotten. This matter remains unclear and has thus unfortunately spawned all sorts of uncharitable speculation about a relative of the President having stuck a finger into the pie.
So, to end all speculation, Marissa Camacho Reyes and Dan Songco should just return the money—all the money. Now and forever.
We have to stress this because people are alarmed this early by the announcement of Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho, flushed with triumph after last week’s confirmation, that his department was thinking of floating more zero coupons. Perhaps he is thinking that if he inundates the Treasury with zero coupon bond issues, the very first and anomalous ones will be forgotten. No, they won’t.
Indeed, we have to point this out because CODE-NGO leaders, mistakenly thinking that all their critics in the NGO community are only sour-graping, have advised them to also approach the Treasury with a similarly cooked bond offering. Never mind that, in the end, for a billion more or less of charitable funds for the Filipino people, the very same Filipino people or their children will have to pay in every instance some PhP35 billion 10 years down the road. Already, one NGO with Rizal Bank chairman Cesar Virata as its president has complained that he forgot all about it when he approved this scheme for CODE-NGO.
No, despite their problems about drying up sources of development aid, NGOs cannot go on looking to ‘creative solutions’ from the same type of Wharton advisers who have made a mess of little countries’ poverty-alleviation programs by their stupid advice.
You cannot raise funds for charity by creating unnecessary and onerous debt. And you cannot reduce poverty by forcing people—they gave no consent to the PEACe bonds—repay a debt they had no hand in, when they can barely make ends meet.
To end, we borrow from Mr. Songco and Mrs. Reyes’s letter: ‘The opportunity to serve is truly its own reward’. That said, there should be no pain in returning the money.
TODAY was a Philippine news daily broadsheet. It ceased publication in 2004.
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