President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s first State of the Nation Address lacked the rhetorical flourishes and elegance of language of Sonaas of his predecessors, but his goals and promises to the people are no less ambitious nor overarching. The President wanted to be frank, forthright, since and intense. That was achieved by his departing or discarding portions of his speech and his choosing to speak from the heart, extemporaneously. In so doing, he conveyed a leader full of passion and compassion but one who means business.
Basically, Duterte promised a better life for most Filipinos, specifically the poor, marginalized, minorities, and former rebels.
“My administration shall be sensitive to the State’s obligations to promote, and protect, fulfill the human rights of our citizens, especially the poor, the marginalized and the vulnerable and social justice will be pursued, even as the rule of law shall at all times prevail,” he vowed.
Among President Duterte’s more important promises:
1. “We cannot move forward if we allow the past to pull us back… It is the present that we are concerned with and the future that we should be prepared for.”
“Those who betrayed the people’s trust shall not go unpunished and they will have their day in court. And if the evidence warrants, they will have their day of reckoning too.”
Translation: Duterte won’t blame BS Aquino his predecessor for the massive corruption in government today, for the crippling red tape in government offices, for the massive traffic in Metro Manila, for the severe lack of infrastructure nationwide, for the poor performance of agriculture, for the rise in number of poor people, and for the loss of faith of people in their government.
But Duterte will go hammer and tongs against hose found corrupt and criminal.
2. “The people on the streets complain that justice had become illusory; that equity and fairness and speedy disposition of cases had deteriorated into hollow concepts fit only for masteral dissertations.”
Translation: People will probably now get a better service from the judiciary which has become a tool of oppression of the rich and powerful.
3. “While I am a stickler for the principle of separation between Church and State, I believe quite strongly that there should never be a separation between God and State.”
Translation: Duterte will continue to quarrel with Church leaders on various issues. Therefore, they should not get in the way of programs that the President is intensely involved in, like the killing of drug lords whom he said he wants to strangle to death.
4. “We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier, and the last pusher have surrendered or put behind bars or below the ground…”
Translation: No need.
5. “We will lower personal and corporate income tax rates and relax the bank secrecy laws.”
Translation: No need. But Duterte didn’t say when he would do the lowering and simplifying.
6. “Processing time in issuing permits and licenses shall be reduced to the barest minimum, in my city, it is always three days for local governments. That will bind the Office of the President down to the last barangay elect. Three days. Three days.”
Translation: No need. But Duterte didn’t promise when the policy would begin. It should be out three days after the Sona, to use the three-day paradigm.
Ongpin’s insider trading case
Meanwhile, my Harvard-educated friend Roberto V. Ongpin is bristling at the finding of the powerful Securities and Exchange Commission that he, former chair and CEO of SGV and at present the CEO of Alphaland Corp., is guilty of insider trading for allegedly making 174 purchases of Philex Mining shares prior to the announcement that telco tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan was buying control of the company.
Bobby calls the SEC ruling “erroneous and grossly unfair…I thought that the persecution under the Aquino administration had ended but apparently, the remaining minions of the past administration are still determined to get me,” he sneers. He will appeal the SEC ruling before the Court of Appeals.
Ongpin says the SEC insider-trading case was a recycling of a behest loan case filed by the Ombudsman several years ago before the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan. In fact, the issue is so old that the deadline for filing the insider trading case had lapsed.
The Sandigan threw out the behest loan case, twice, for lack of probable cause. The case did not even go to trial. The Ombudsman had alleged that the DBP was damaged by Ongpin buying Philex shares and selling them to MVP at a profit. In fact DBP made a huge profit, P1.4 billion. “Behest” is when one borrows from a government bank, using one’s connections, and then one runs away with the money. Ongpin paid the loan back ahead of schedule and DBP collected an enormous gain.
Having lost that behest-loan case, the government resurrected it, this time before the SEC, as an insider trading, which is illegal. Insider trading is when one knows in advance material information about a listed company and one buys or sells the stocks concerned with a view to make a profit.
If you believe Bobby, there was no insider trading simply because the material information—which is the price at which MVP would buy Philex shares from RVO—was not known. It was not known simply because there was no agreement yet on the price at which MVP would buy when Ongpin made the stock purchases. So how can an unknown information become material when it is precisely that, unknown.
Ongpin was simply negotiating a price with Manny Pangilinan, which was a straightforward commercial transaction and was never based on any insider information. “The jurisprudence is clear, there was no insider trading at all,” Ongpin says.
More significantly, the case was filed almost a full year after the two-year deadline under the law, the Securities Regulations Code. “Clearly, the case had prescribed,” Ongpin insists.
Ongpin says SEC’s forcing him to resign from all listed companies and effectively forcing him to go out of business and terminate his business career are a “cruel and unusual punishment”, which is against the Constitution.
Moreover, the move of the SEC en banc to increase the recommended fine to P174 million, 10 times more than what SEC’s own investigation unit recommended, is unconscionable and confiscatory. “It only emphasizes the clear bias of the SEC against me,” fumes Ongpin.
The tycoon recalls that from the start of the Aquino administration, there had been a pattern of harassment against him. An astronomical total of six cases were filed against Ongpin by various government agencies. All six—except the SEC case—were either quashed or dismissed.
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