Trailing dirt and coming clean

Perhaps believing that he is comfortably ensconced in familiar surroundings and safe in his element as a resurrected media practitioner, the former vice president, who had only recently perched within a heartbeat of Gloria Arroyo, must now contend with diametrically opposing forces that pull on him. Returning to the Fourth Estate that traditionally plays a fiscalizing role on government, especially one as brazen as the previous just passed, former vice president Noli de Castro must come to terms with what he has been transformed into. The aftertaste of being not simply an influential figure in the Arroyo administration but one that until lately virtually insured its longevity, de Castro cannot escape being accountable for responsibilities vested upon him since 2004. Accountability does not end when incumbency ends. It ends with closure. As a media professional, de Castro knows that it is accountability that founds the basis for the Fourth Estate in any democratic society. It is not difficult to imagine that de Castro might well be conflicted. Noli de Castro is a media man. But former vice president Manuel de Castro was Arroyo’s housing czar, the Chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), and vice chairman of the Home Guaranty Corporation (HGC), the agency at the center of the Smokey Mountain scandal. It was the HGC with the National Housing Authority (NHA) which the HUDCC head simultaneously chairs that had, just days before the end of Arroyo’s incumbency, a pending memorandum of agreement (MOA) and a compromise agreement with a contractor stipulating among others considerable remuneration of as much as Php 4.46 billion - payment critics claim would settle all and sundry legal obligations. Couple with those the immense responsibilities of de Castro’s preeminent position as the second highest official in the republic and we see that he might well be considered integral to the deal. Far from the collateral variable spin city punsters paint him to be, in real politick his office carries the weight of the vice presidency. To be fair, de Castro denied that any agreement was in force. In his radio program, he asked, “What is my offense? Was there any signing of documents?” He said there was “no agreement and plan to sign any compromise agreement”. “That is not on our agenda and there is not enough time” referring to the then imminent end of the Arroyo term. He added that the drafts were still in the technical group level and he had not seen these. Drafts needed HGC board approval. Because the new administration was ushered in on the theme of anti-corruption and accountability, let us invoke both. First dwelling on broad strokes and from there working up to specificity let us ask what should have been asked. One, given the contractor’s financial capacity then and now, should authorities not have reconciled those with the project’s requisites given that the state needed to put up the capital to complete the project when these had originally been part of the contractor’s responsibilities? Two, it was reported that of the Php 1.7 billion claimed against the government, Php 800 million had been paid by the NHA without Commission on Audit clearances. Why then was payment made? As NHA chairman, did the former vice president know this? Three, it was reported that completed construction works had amounted to only Php 211 million. While it is a matter of valuations and the comprehensive bill might have included a host of other expenses, the exponential difference between Php 211 million and the eventual billing of Php 1.7 billion compels serious, prolonged and profound scrutiny that should have raised red flags at the very least. Four, there are reports that a premature endorsement to Gloria Arroyo for the payment by the NHA of a total of Php 4.46 billion was made. If this is true, who made this endorsement and upon what basis was the endorsement given when proposed agreements or MOAs were still pending with technical working groups? From Php 21 million in hamburgers and takeout to midnight deals and appointments, the exiting administration seems to have left a trail of dirt and mud as it scurried to the Batasan Hills. Accountability demands from those with remnant decency, if not contrition then, at the very least, the truth. Whether from a sound booth or from the witness stand, someone must come clean.