CHICAGO (JGLi) – If former Senate President and former Speaker of the House Manny Villar is elected president in the Philippines in about two weeks, he will go down in history as the first ever to turn the concept of political party invented in the 14th century on its head.
A President Villar will be the first politician in memory to bankroll his own campaign.
No modern president, in the Philippines and in the United States or in other democracies, could ever lay a claim that he won the expensive presidential campaign out of his own personal pocket – very deep pocket.
Not even Marcos, when he called the snap presidential campaign could claim that he self-funded his campaign. When Marcos ran for president for the first time, his campaign was for the most part funded by his wealthy vice president (Fernando Lopez) and his party mates.
BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS
I would be happy if Senator Villar wins for as long as the money he spent in his campaign really came honestly from his own blood, sweat and tears. I would be very proud of it.
But the question is, did he really earn it fair and square? I mean can he really accumulate what the Forbes magazine said his net worth of US$530-million in 2009 that made him the ninth wealthiest Filipino as posted on Wikipedia? That is equivalent to 23-billion pesos (P23,000,000,000).
But as if by design came the bombshell last week by his presidential rival former President Joseph Estrada and party mate Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile when everything came into place with the revelation that Senator Villar “amassed at least P20 billion” after pressuring the Philippine Stock Exchange board in June 2007 when he was Senate president, and that the government earned more than 100 million pesos in taxes from the controversial public offering of shares of his real estate firm, Vista Land & Lifescapes.
In other words the Forbes estimate of Mr. Villar’s fortune was on target as the 20-billion pesos in 2007 could have earned another 3 billion pesos after two years.
But what is galling is when Mr. Villar took pride that the Philippine government earned more than 120 million pesos in taxes. If Mr. Villar is good in math, which I assume he is, because he is a certified public account, he should have been modest in mentioning the amount of taxes he paid the government because 120 million pesos is nothing compared to 20 billion pesos. It is only equal to .06 percent. The amount is really peanut.
A PEANUT
Can anybody take pride in earning a peanut?
Mr. Villar’s lawyer (Nalen Rosero Galang) tried to put Mr. Estrada on the defensive by reminding Mr. Estrada of “1999 Best World Resources stock manipulation.” But she could not shake off the dust from Estrada’s feet.
Atty. Galang upheld the statement of Sen. Villar that senators like himself were not required to divest themselves of business interests. She explained that only those in executive positions, such as the President, were required by law to do so, and that those in the legislature were merely required to disclose their business interests in their statement of assets and liabilities (SALNs).
Hmm. Is this true?
If I were Senator Villar if he wants to prove his credibility, he should furnish the media documents that he “had declared his stock earnings under the holding company in 2007.”
Right now, the only financial public document that I got hold of is the report of my former desk editor Ms. Malou Mangahas of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism last February, 2010, which says, “(f)rom June 2004 to June 2007, Villar enrolled the same unchanged value for his pieces of real property, minus the details: 4.59-million.
STATEMENTS OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES
“From June 2004 to June 2007, Villar did not report any amount for the real assets he owned. In Dec. 2007, he resumed reporting his real assets. This time with a bigger value of 19.52-M pesos. He reported the same unchanged amount as the value of his real assets in December 2008.”
Nowhere did Mr. Villar list the 20-billion pesos from sales of stock of Land Vista & Lifescapes in his 2007 or 2008 SALNs.
If he cannot prove legitimate ownership over the 20-billion pesos, I’m afraid the tool used by the Philippine Commission on Good Government against Marcos could also be used against Mr. Villar:
the 1955 Philippine law – Republic Act 1379 or Forfeiture Law, which says, “Property derived from the misuse of public office is forfeited to the Philippine government from the moment of misappropriation.”
Granting that Mr. Villar is able to show a truthful SALN’s, if he wins, how is he going to recoup the billions of pesos he spent in his campaign?
I have nothing against Mr. Villar. But I want my Philippine president, to be truthful, honest and transparent in his official business dealings with the people.
In fact, when I first met Mr. Villar in Chicago when he came by to visit as Speaker of the House in 1999, I was very impressed by his passion to uplift the lot of the overseas Filipino workers (OFW’s), saying he wanted to turn them from an army of employees into a large body of entrepreneurs.
If Senator Villar cannot come clean, my friend, Joseph Estrada, a second runner-up, should not lose hope because even if my candidate, Sen. Noynoy Aquino, is a front-runner in the race, anything can still happen near the homestretch until the “Fat Lady (Comelec?) sings.”