Hit or mess (Part II)

Even before Malacañang could make an official decision on the messy bidding for the 35-year government contract on the 47-kilometer P35-billion toll road Calax (Cavite-Laguna Expressway), the media campaign on the project kept on expanding.

Only last week, as we all now, except perhaps our beloved senators who were busy skinning Vice President Binay alive, our leader Benigno Simeon (aka BS) floated the idea of a “rebid” for the contract.

For good reason—because the president of the republic himself noted that it would be rather difficult for Malacañang to explain to the public the P9 billion that the Aquino (Part II) administration would have to forego without the rebid.

And in any language, whether Spanish, pidgin or Chavacano, the amount of P9 billion is still a lot of money!

Anyway, the media campaign started as soon as our leader BS uttered the “R” word, and in media, everybody knew that such an operation was the business sector’s way of exerting pressure on the government to influence its decision.

Obviously the campaign would have to cast the “possible”—well, it was not yet a certainty—rebidding in a negative light. Reports started quoting every Tom, Dick and Peter, in effect criticizing the rebid to the effect that it would be bad for the country.

Earlier (Breaktime, Oct. 27, 2014) we explained the mess in the bidding conducted by the DPWH for the fat road contract, in which DPWH declared the Ayala-Aboitiz joint venture Team Orion as the winner with its offer of P11.6 billion, although one single DPWH official overruled everybody in the government by disqualifying the San Miguel group, which was nevertheless able to prove that its bid was actually P20.1 billion.

From what I gathered, when the San Miguel group appealed to our leader BS to overrule the DPWH official on its “disqualification,” Malacañang sent word to Team Orion that they would get the project just by matching the San Miguel bid of P20.1 billion.

It seemed that Malacañang did not get a favorable answer, which led our leader BS to float in media his preference for a rebid, which in turn earned the various critical statements such as it would be bad for business confidence and all that.

Still, some investment banker was quoted in the reports to be against the rebid, although from what I gathered, the same investment banker worked for a company that served as the financial consultant of Team Orion, which of course could only get the “bonus” if its client would win the contract.

Another group critical of the “rebid,” as desired by the president of the republic himself, happened to be the Makati Business Club, and everybody in media knew all along with which group—among the groups in the Calax bidding—the MBC was closely identified.

Hint – not the San Miguel group.

Anyway, former finance secretary Ramon del Rosario happened to be the MBC chair and he also happened to sit in the board of the Ayala group. From what I gathered, the MBC also peddled its media statement (against the rebid of course) to other business groups.

My contacts in a number of those other groups nevertheless did not have any idea whatsoever that their organization was committing all of the members to the so-called joint statement, which of course favored Team Orion by attacking the “rebid” floated by our leader BS.

Based on media reports, what they were saying in effect was that the bidding was clean and transparent. You know—there was nothing wrong with it.

Question: How would they know that, if they were not even participants in the bidding in the first place? And how come nobody even mentioned the fantastic P9-billion difference in the bids, the main factor that our leader BS was so worried about? How would they propose to Malacañang to explain the enormous amount of P9 billion to the public—by ignoring it?

And so in the media campaign we heard such lofty ideals as “consistency and predictability in policy” or “adherence to rules,” when down here in our barangay, we knew that, precisely, our leader BS was only trying to do the right thing in wanting to correct the obvious “cooking” of the Calax bidding.

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Down here we also rejoiced when, in 2009, Congress passed the Food and Drugs Administration law (RA 9711) because it supposedly aimed to strengthen the food and medicine police called FDA, or the Food and Drug Administration, which was under the Department of Trade and Industry.

Five years later we still fall victims to fake, substandard, contaminated and hazardous health products in the open market. Yes, boss, they are still for sale everywhere.

To think—the main qualification of the FDA head is that he or she should be a medical doctor. And it seems that Malacañang is still trying to search for the replacement of the former FDA director general, Dr. Kenneth Hartigan-Go, who has resigned his post. What do you think—perhaps it is time for our leader BS to consider even non-doctors to head the FDA? Say, a seasoned business executive?

The guys down here in my barangay nevertheless hardly care for the profession or the sexual preference of the FDA head as long as the new director general can deliver to us the promises in the FDA law.

The main author of the law was none other than Sen. Pia Cayetano, who authored many other milestone bills in the past 10 years during her two terms in the Senate. The senator nevertheless was consistent in referring to the FDA law as her most favorite legislation. Food and drugs in this country after all represented more than 50 percent of household expenditures.

The FDA law was clear in its aim to correct some defects in the FDA system, but then again the devil has always been in the implementation. For instance, the law created for the FDA this so-called special regulatory fund, or SRF, which represented its income that it could use to perform its important functions to protect our interests down here.

Ironically one reason why the FDA has been remiss in its police job was, well, none other than lack of funding, despite the SRF and its budget allocation. Go figure.

Well, from what I gathered, the FDA still could not implement the crucial SRF because the Department of Budget and Management for one complained that the FDA could not even submit a simple business plan—at least something that could pass the scrutiny of the DBM.

That very same RA 9711 actually aimed to “enhance and strengthen the administrative and technical capacity of the FDA in the regulation of establishments and products under its jurisdiction.”

The reality in the past five years was that FDA still took its sweet time to register and inspect the health products available in the open market because the FDA simply failed to improve its technical capability.

On the one hand, from what I gathered, the FDA has been strict in implementing its “standard” on local products, under its program called “current good manufacturing practice (CGMP), although we also heard horror stories about the program.

On the other hand, to check on those mountains of imported products, the FDA relied mainly on documents and claims of the importing companies, hardly conducting any physical audit of the foreign manufacturers that shipped those products to the Philippines. You know—the FDA just looked at papers.

Let us not even talk about those various products being sold and advertised as “cure all” products, minus the scientific studies to prove their efficacy, as long as the products have the label “no approved therapeutic claim.”

And all along down here we thought that, precisely, the FDA was supposed to approve whether or not those same products could be sold to the public at all.