With a little over two years before the May 2016 presidential
election, board rooms and coffee shops abound with speculations on who
will run, and who will not.
There is talk that Vice President Jojo Binay will surely run for
President, having already announced his intention. As for the who will
be the anointed one of President Aquino as his successor, there is no
doubt that it will be Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas
—although the President is not yet saying it.
The speculation is more on who the running mates will be.
The most viable, they say, is a Binay-Jinggoy Estrada tandem. This will appeal to both officials’ masa base.
Senators Bong Revilla and Alan Peter Cayetano have also said that
they would both run. Senator Bongbong Marcos may go together with
Cayetano.
A survey recently commissioned by Malacañang showed that Senator Chiz
Escudero was a more viable presidential candidate of Mar than Cayetano.
Some are also saying that Joseph Estrada may opt to run for President
again. Sure, he is already 76 years old, but remember that he came
second to President Aquino in 2010. Had the Iglesia ni Cristo chosen
him, Estrada would have likely become President again.
This is what gives rise to rumors that an Erap-Binay tandem is also
possible. Erap will serve for only three years and Binay will serve for
the rest. And then Binay can run for another six-year term.
This rumor is boosted by the case of plunder hanging over the head of
Jinggoy, who is said to be preparing to succeed his father as mayor of
Manila.
The issues of poverty, joblessness and corruption will be on the top
of the list in the coming elections. Unfortunately, nothing much will be
different then.
* * *
Since it’s graduation time again, I cannot help feeling nostalgic
about my own graduation way back in 1950. I was among the last graduates
of Ateneo de Manila in the ruins of Padre Faura before it moved to
Loyola Heights.
I was then 21, feeling confident that I could conquer the world.
My classmate, former Vice President Tito Guingona (we used to call
each other comrade; we thought of becoming communists, since communism
was in vogue then) and I went job-hunting. We went to the National
University to apply as professors but we were told that we lacked
eligibility.
Frustrated, we went to San Miguel Corporation where we were told that
the only jobs available were those for delivery truck drivers. We knew
how to drive but we still could not qualify since being a mestizo was a
requirement for all San Miguel Employees at that time.
We were told that there were vacancies at Pepsi-Cola. Thus we went
and found that they needed “cargadores” or haulers of boxes for
delivery, for the graveyard shift at that!
Tito and I almost gave up and resigned ourselves to be counted among the jobless.
Out of the blue, an oblate from Cotabato City came to the Ateneo to
ask for volunteers to set up a newspaper called “The Mindanao Cross.”
My friend Rudy Tupas—who became ambassador to Libya during the Marcos
era—and I applied. Rudy was editor-in-chief of The Guidon with me as
associate editor. We stayed for two years in Cotabato.
I married a beauty who was from Cagayan de Oro but residing in Cotabato.
* * *
I can understand why Cebu Senator Serge Osmeña got hot under the
collar when he read a news report that Executive Director Cosette
Canilao of the Public-Private Partnership Program Center had said that
the Department of Transportation and Communication was abiding by its
end-March target of awarding the multi-billion pesos contract to the
tandem of the Indian GMR Infrastructure Ltd. and the Filipino Megawide
Construction Corp., which offered a P14.4-billion premium on top of the
project cost.
The report refers to the Mactan Cebu International Airport project.
The remark of the PPP official was carried in a business daily and was
later mentioned in two national broadsheets.
Canilao denied making the announcement despite the fact that a
similar report came out earlier, in the February 12, 2014 issue of
another business daily.
This is what that report stated: “In another development, the
government hopes to award the MCIA deal to the consortium of Megawide
Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastructure Ltd. within the week. Ms.
Canilao said that the government is about 70 percent done conducting due
diligence to make sure that every issue is answered.”
Santa Banana, to my knowledge, Canilao never repudiated nor clarified this report. So, how can anyone now believe her denial?
All these seem to be consistent with Canilao’s other statements
related to the issue. In the hearing on the MCIA project conducted March
11 by the House Committee on Transportation, Canilao said that delay in
the implementation was due to the protest filed by the “losing bidder.”
While she did not actually name the losing bidder, there was no
mistaking the context and implication of her statement that the contract
has already been awarded to a chosen bidder. There were references
during that same hearing to the GMR-Megawide group a having made a P14.4
billion offer, which was subsequently declared as the “highest bid.”
On the other hand, the Filinvest-Changi consortium submitted a P13.99
billion offer and is deemed to have lost in the bidding, at least in
the stage of the bidding process. It does appear, my gulay, that Canilao
is jumping the gun on the DoTC. That’s because in the hearings
conducted by the Senate and the House, both the PPP and the DoTC
asserted that they were still studying the conflict of interest issue
and evaluating the financial submissions of the highest bidder. They
would arrive at a decision only by the end of the month.
As for DoTC’s role in this MCIA charade, Santa Banana, who would not
be dismayed by the utter ineptitude and incompetence of the
Pre-Qualification Bids and Awards committee that made it all a circus!
First, the head of the Technical Working Group (TWG), one Paul
Pasion, said that after a two-month evaluation of all the documents and
submissions of the bidders, he submitted a two-page report in the
Pre-Qualification Bids and Awards Committee of the DoTC. If Osmeña was
incredulous, who wouldn’t be.
My gulay, the pre-qualification process took all of two months!
Seven groups consisting of at least 14 different companies
participated in the bidding. The construction cost of the project is
P17.5 billion (excluding the premium offer). And the result of TWG’s
work is a two-page report? Unbelievable!
source: Manila Standard By
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