In forming his Cabinet, a newly elected president seeks to draw the best and the brightest to join his official family. It is as it should be. However, there are instances when due diligence in vetting Cabinet appointees was overlooked, giving rise to conflicts of interest. Too often, presidential appointments are mostly based on who helped in the political campaign.
Former President Benigno Aquino III appointed Cabinet members who had served his mother when she was president. For example, he named Voltaire Gazmin, the former head of Cory’s Presidential Security Group as his defense secretary. Other appointees were Ateneo classmates, barkada (gangmates) or kabarilan ( shooting buddies) like the late Virginia Torres, chief of the Land Transportation Office.
It is the same now. Some Cabinet appointees of President Rodrigo Duterte were either his classmates or roommates at San Beda College. This is not to say they should be barred from serving in government if they are qualified. Those who were with Digong since his Davao mayor days and stayed the course to convince him to run when he was a reluctant presidential candidate included Carlos “Sonny” Dominguez, now Finance secretary; Manny Piñol, appointed Agriculture secretary; and Vitaliano Aguirre, Justice secretary. There is a gray area, however, when some appointees have a conflict of interest in their present Cabinet post and the private sector from where they were plucked to join the government.
To preclude this conflict of interest, Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo filed House Bill 3758 which imposes a three-year ban on Cabinet officials from returning to their former companies from the time they leave the government. Castelo’s bill also bans former Cabinet officials from forming their own companies in industries related to the state agencies they had served. The House measure is aimed against giving undue advantage to the private companies with which former Cabinet officials have previous ties to rejoin in a key and high-paying position.
“This practice is breeding ground for the promotion of conflict of interest especially when the official is in the same industrial sphere,” said Castelo. His bill will prevent officials from continuing to exert undue influence on both public and private sectors after they leave government service, said Castelo in explaining the rationale for his proposed measure.
Castelo went further than House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez—a known Duterte ally who with the supermajority in Congress wants to grant Digong emergency powers in solving Metro Manila’ monstrous traffic problem—did. In previous House hearings, Speaker Alvarez lamented that some members of the Aquino Cabinet returned to private companies they had worked for after they leave government service.
Alvarez cited the present Department of Transportation Undersecretary Arthur Tugade who has a conflict of interest—just like the previous administration when officials were giving priority to the interests of their former principals. He pointed out that Tugade’s family is engaged in the transport and logistics business. Transportation Undersecretary Noel Kintanar was assistant vice president of Ayala Corp. and was instrumental in the acquisition of railway projects under the Aquino administration. Undersecretary for Air Operations Bobby Lim was the former country manager of the International Air Transport Association. Felipe Judan, Undersecretary for Maritime Affairs, once served in the Southwest Marine Group which includes among its clientele Petron of businessman Ramon Ang who owns majority share of Manila North Harbor Port Inc. This is where inter-island vessels, including the fleet of Southwest Maritime Group Starlite Ferries, dock.
“Let us not fool ourselves. In every administration, private corporations put their people in departments covering their business,” said Alvarez as he asked: “Whose interests are they serving?”
House Deputy Minority Leader Harry Roque cites the case of former Customs chief Albert Lina. When Lina was appointed in April 2015, he went after Omniprime Marketing Inc., a competitor of his company, E Konek Pilpinas. Roque, a lawyer by profession and through required disclosure, admitted he represented Omniprime’s Annabelle Margoroli in the case against Lina pending before the Office of the Ombudsman. Roque said that Lina, upon assumption of office, canceled a P650-million contract that had undergone two rigorous public biddings to make his company, E Konek, the service provider of the Bureau of Customs.
There ought to be a law against conflict of interest. Castelo’s House Bill No.3758 is exactly that as it seeks to address this problem of private-sector executives returning to rejoin their former companies. With their added expertise acquired in their government stint, they rejoin their former firms with a higher pay. Or they form their own companies. The bill, in effect, challenges Tugade and his DOTr team for seeking emergency powers without a concrete plan to decongest Metro traffic and proposing projects that have no funding under the 2017 national budget. Castelo and Senator Grace Poe are of the same mind in questioning the DOTr’s lack of planning in solving the traffic crisis that is causing commuter woes and costing the country billions of pesos in lost productive man hours.
“Emergency powers is not the magic wand that will make all our problems go away,” said Senator Poe, adding that projects that do not undergo public biddings will be more prone to corruption.
