The Arroyo couple�s scandalous corruption
Mike and Gloria Arroyo are so voracious in squeezing bribes and commissions from every contract entered into, big or small, and from all government financial institutions. It is Mike Arroyo himself who deals directly with foreign contractors to ensure that the couple gobbles up the biggest possible lucre.
On September 19, Sulpicio Tagud Jr., one of the directors of the Public Estates Authority (PEA), disclosed that Mike Arroyo himself and his cronies in the PEA were involved in the anomalous construction of the President Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard (PDMB) in Manila. Tagud said that the PEA Board of Directors connived with the JD Legaspi Corporation (JDLC) to make it appear that construction costs exceeded P1 billion even if actual expenses were in the neighborhood of P500 million. The P600 million excess went directly to Arroyo�s pockets.
More than half of PEA�s expenses (P500 million) were defrayed by funds from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). No less than Malaca�ang ordered the GSIS to extend a loan to the PEA despite the agency�s financial problems. To comply with the order, the GSIS delayed the release of retired employees� monthly pensions. It also rejected many loan applications from GSIS members and deferred housing projects for them.
The JDLC contract has long been a milking cow of the powers that be. Estrada benefited from it in 1999. But much bigger amounts were milked when Macapagal-Aroyo appointed her own people to the PEA leadership. Kickbacks were channeled through Ernest Villareal, PEA head and a close friend of Mike Arroyo. In addition, Villareal likewise serves as the head of the Bigkis Pinoy Foundation, a front organization of the Arroyo family and a suspected fundraiser for Macapagal-Arroyo�s election kitty for 2004.
Before the PDMB anomaly hit the headlines, the Arroyo couple�s extortion from the Cheng family (overt owners of the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. or PIATCo) had already been bared before the public. PIATCo is the government contractee for the construction of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 under the build-operate-transfer scheme. As soon as Macapagal-Arroyo took power, she and her husband made a deal with PIATCo.
In exchange, PIATCo agreed to give about $4.4 million (P220 million based on a P50=$1 exchange rate) bribe to Macapagal-Arroyo. With the help of their operator Dante Ang, the Arroyos put in Alfonso Liongson as a �special consultant� to PIATCo so that the bribe money could be channeled through him. Fron June to December, Liongson received $2.1 million (P105 million).
The amount of $4.4 million was never completed because Liongson was forced to go into hiding in January 2002 when intense criticisms of the anomalous contract continued without letup and the Arroyos� hand in the extortion was slowly being revealed. In August, he was sent off to Hong Kong to cut off any link with the Arroyo couple.
To be able to milk an even bigger amount, Macapagal-Arroyo maneuvered to put in her own people in PIATCo. First, she made a show of having the PIATCo contract reviewed and declaring it anomalous. After this, she ordered presidential adviser on strategic projects Gloria Tan-Climaco, to disclose that PIATCo was merely a front of Frankfurt Airport Service Worldwide (Fraport AG), a Germany company, to pressure the latter to cut off its business ties with the Cheng family and replace it with the group of Macapagal-Arroyo crony Lucio Tan. Climaco was especially chosen for the �review� because she was privy to PIATCo�s anomalous provisions and transactions. She used to chair the Sycip, Gorres and Velayo company that audits PIATCo and Fraport. Climaco, along with Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo, was also involved in PIATCo�s bribery of former Department of Transportation and Communication secretary Pantaleon Alvarez. In connivance with Alvarez, PIATCo bloated the expenditures for the construction of the NAIA Terminal 3.
Climaco threatened Fraport with a government takeover of the project if it did not agree to Macapagal-Arroyo�s conditions. Because Fraport AG had already poured $375 million (P18.75 billion based on a P50=$1 exchange rate) into the project, it eventually caved in before Macapagal-Arroyo�s brazen extortion. On September 5, Fraport promised to raise $400 million (P20 billion) for the project. Three-hundred million dollars ($300 million) would go to its local partners while $100 million (P5 billion) would go directly to Macapagal-Arroyo.
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