“While he’s at it, President Marcos should fire Bruce Tolentino, the BSP Monetary Board member who criticized the president’s Kadiwa project last month, but ended up taking back what he said”
It appears the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is wasting millions of pesos of public funds for legal fees paid to private lawyers.
The national government is always represented in court cases by the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), particularly when an agency of the national government is sued.
This is manifest in cases filed before the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals where the constitutionality of a statute enacted by Congress or an executive order issued by the President of the Philippines is directly challenged.
I know this for a fact, considering that I have already challenged the constitutionality of many statutes, as well as circulars issued by officials of the government before the courts of law.
With respect to criminal cases, it is the Department of Justice (DOJ), through its prosecutors, that investigates criminal complaints and, upon a finding of probable cause, files criminal cases in court in the name of the People of the Philippines.
The DOJ prosecutes the criminal case until the conviction of the accused, or his acquittal, as the case may be.
If the accused is convicted in the trial court and he elevates his case to the Court of Appeals and, ultimately, the Supreme Court, the OSG takes over the case on behalf of the People of the Philippines.
That’s because the OSG is the counsel of the State in all criminal cases pending appeal before higher courts.
Government-owned and controlled corporations, and a number of specialized administrative agencies are, however, defended in court by the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC), an agency under the DOJ.
Cases handled by the OGCC are mostly civil in nature, like suits involving civil damages or breach of contract.
As far as I know, the OSG and the OGCC do not charge any professional legal fees, or what lay people refer to as “attorney’s fees” from the national government for its legal services.
That’s because it is their duty under the law to serve as the counsel for the government.
That rule notwithstanding, I understand that lawyers from the OSG and the OGCC who appear in court are given a “representation allowance” for their trouble.
This is where the BSP enters the picture.
The BSP is arguably the government agency that enjoys the biggest funding in the country, and the BSP governor is the highest paid government official in the land.
When incumbent Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno was still BSP governor under President Rodrigo Duterte, the Commission on Audit (COA) reported that his salaries and allowances for the year 2020 was a whopping P19.79-million. Wow!
That amount more than doubled in 2021 when the COA revealed that Diokno received P41-81-million likewise in salaries and allowances. He also has extensive perks and privileges as BSP governor!
Pastilan, Dodong! The BSP governor draws a government compensation higher than the official salaries and allowances the President of the Philippines is entitled to! That is an anomaly by itself!
Here’s the bigger anomaly.
The BSP has an extensive legal department with many well-paid lawyers to represent it in court. It may also be represented in court by either the OSG or the OGCC, depending on the nature of the case.
In the course of its operations, the BSP places erring or failing banking institutions under “prompt corrective action”or PCA.
To all intents and purposes, banks placed under PCA are suspended from operating, and its officers are often made to face criminal charges in court.
To prosecute PCA cases, the BSP hires bigtime, expensive private law firms.
Inevitably, the millions of pesos the BSP pays to these expensive private law firms are taken from public funds, to the prejudice of the taxpayers.
Why the BSP hires expensive private law firms when it can be represented by either its own legal department, or by the OSG or the OGCC, is obviously a waste of valuable public funds.
It is an anomalous practice that must be stopped immediately.
Even assuming that the BSP charter allows it to hire expensive private law firms to do its work, the arrangement is still anomalous because it is a waste of public funds.
The arrangement itself encourages graft, in that the BSP is likely to choose its “favorite” private law firms, possibly in exchange for a “valuable consideration.”
Considering the millions of pesos involved here, why isn’t the BSP’s selection and hiring of expensive private law firms subject to the procurement law?
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Congress should end this anomaly.
While he’s at it, President Marcos should fire Bruce Tolentino, the BSP Monetary Board member who criticized the president’s Kadiwa project last month, but ended up taking back what he said.
Highly-paid BSP officials like Tolentino who make reckless public statements against the government do not deserve to stay in office.