Three recent columns of mine drew responses, which I want to take care of with these postscripts.

In my column of June 11, I discussed the much ballyhooed newly launched low-cost housing program of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). To buy a unit, a member can borrow up to P300,000 at an annual rate of 4.0 percent. This concessionary rate is below the 12-percent minimum required to make the investment funds of GSIS actuarially sound.

The interest rate is a direct function of the credit risk. The lower the risk, the lower should be the rate. The higher the risk, the higher should be the rate.

But GSIS is charging the lowest rate on the riskiest of all loans. You only have to check the website of the Commission on Audit to find out that GSIS is saddled with tens of millions of pesos in arrearages on low-cost housing loans granted years ago in previous programs. These loans are way past due and can be considered no longer collectible. Many of the original borrowers can no longer be contacted anymore.

To make matters even worse, inflation has now soared to 11 percent. To the harried members then, these low-cost housing loans are now worth minus 7 percent.

I grant the social value of a low-cost housing program. But low-cost housing, which are extremely risky, should never be sourced—at whatever rate—from GSIS funds which have been built up by compulsory contributions from government workers, almost half of whom earn minimum wages.

In my column of June 25, I suggested that the 40-percent tariff on imported chicken be repealed, and importations be allowed tax-free. This will create such great demand for chicken, the poor man’s meat. Local poultry raisers have to increase their capacities. With chicken prices going down, consumer goods, from pork to beef, fish to vegetables, will have to go down, too.

I attributed the 40-percent tariff on chicken to Senator Manuel Roxas II when he was still secretary of trade and Industry.

The office of Senator Roxas went on denial mode. It said the secretary of trade and industry had no powers to raise tariffs. It was President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who signed the order that raised the tariff on imported chicken.

Oh, sure, but the President would not have signed the order without the recommendation of her trade secretary.

At any rate, I do not hear Senator Roxas, an avowed defender of the poor, clamoring for the repeal of the 40-percent tariff. Which simply strengthens my resolve not to vote for him as president.

In my June 16 column, “Can SSS members trust Neri?” I wondered whether Romulo Neri, who had been appointed as president of the Social Security System (SSS), could stand the pressure from Malacañang to gouge the SSS funds.

I recalled that President Fidel V. Ramos during his time ordered the SSS to provide funds for his flagship project to build 1,200,000 low-cost housing units all over the country. The SSS dutifully lent money to the National Home Mortgage Finance Corp. (NHMFC) for relending to low-cost homebuyers.

Four years later, the program was in total shambles. NHMFC went bankrupt, not one, not two, but three times. At the SSS, the receivables from NHMFC peaked to, hold your breath, P40 billion. You can look it up in the published financial statements of SSS.

These arrearages are a terrible burden on the 25 million members of SSS. And the blame can be rightly placed at the feet of Fidel V. Ramos.

Previous columns:
CTPL: Cure worse than the disease (Part 2) – 7/30/08
CTPL: Cure worse than the disease – 7/23/08
Can SSS members trust Neri? – 7/16/08
Senior citizens: The fight goes on – 7/09/08
Princess of the deep – 7/02/08