Rumors are flying all over the place that various government offices are shunning the NPO, which is the state-owned National Printing Office.

They are turning more and more to private corporations for their millions of pesos worth of printing business.

Among these government offices are the Department of Finance, Land Transportation Office and Manila International Airport Authority.

From what I heard, various offices of treasurers and assessors of local governments also would rather have nothing to do with NPO.

What on Earth could be happening?

To start with, the government offices have been complaining of delays in job orders with the NPO for one reason or another, which apparently involves corruption.

According to my sources, the office seems to have been in a state of paralysis since the middle of last year.

Word is going around that one official of the NPO has been busy trying to make a killing out of the contracts that the office had given out.

He goes around with two armed security personnel. He has a battery of lawyers — three in all, from what I heard. And aside from a chief of staff, this brave soul even has a personal secretary.

Just exactly how much he spends for all those services, nobody knows.

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To top it all, the son-of-his-mother was said to be have been using the names of some big shots at the Palace, such as Press Secretary Jesus Dureza and Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.

For instance, our hero at the NPO tapped some alleged agents of the National Bureau of Investigation to seize records from the offices of a number of NPO contractors.

The main reason was that those contracts were supposedly defective.

Well and good. But how come the NPO did not cancel them or filed charges against the contractors? Okay, you got me there.

My info is that it all had something to do with the “15-percent rule,” which is otherwise known down here in my neighborhood as “commission.”

Moreover, the handsome devil simply brought back the NPO suppliers that were previously blacklisted for violation of various bidding rules.

Shall the poor guys down here in my neighborhood, who religiously pay their taxes because they have no choice, take it to mean that the NPO nowadays simply awards contracts at whim?

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Now to the ongoing “attempted bribery” case as a sideshow of the fight between power retailer Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) and the state-run pension fund Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), which is not yet over. If the talk in business circles is to be believed, the heart of the matter can only be this: Did businessman Francis de Borja really offer P10 million to Court of Appeals Justice Jose Sabio, who chaired the court division hearing the case?

My take on the whole thing is, well, I always worry about accusations of attempted bribery. I mean, really, to make a solid case against De Borja, I thought that Sabio should have taken the money and run, only to use it as proof later to send De Borja to hell, if not to jail, plus all the people he is supposedly working for — or helping.

But whatever, as far as I know, there is nothing in our law about the so-called crime of attempting to bribe a public official.

Otherwise, our jails will be filled with offenders by now.

Anyway, in his affidavit, De Borja claimed that he did not have any interest in the Meralco case.

Even Sabio said that he did not think De Borja actually had P10 million to offer. So where is the money? Don’t tell me — it must be safe somewhere.

Anyway, Sabio might be correct in saying De Borja did not have the money in his actual possession during the meeting.

Sabio testified that De Borja had claimed that Meralco chairman Manuel Lopez was waiting in a car on the night of their supposed meeting.

But Lopez already presented travel documents to prove he was not in the country on that night. Hmmm. Do you really think somebody is not telling the whole truth?

As for the paper bag that supposedly contained the P10-million bribe — in cash, mind you — De Borja actually established that it was a shopping bag with a piece of garment that he had just bought.

Whatever — what I seem to remember is that Camilo L. Sabio, chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government and brother of Justice Sabio, already admitted that he was also acting as an emissary for the opponent of Meralco in the case, which was the GSIS.

Okay, so Justice Sabio also claimed that De Borja pestered him with calls and text messages, well, how come the good justice did not produce any evidence?

Me, I would save those text messages fifty thousand times!