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Uy’s $100 Malampaya firm now makes $1.15 M a day

Uy’s $100 Malampaya firm now makes $1.15 M a day

by | Apr 11, 2023 | Gotcha

PNA photo of Malampaya gas field

GOTCHA

written on November 5, 2021

 

Dennis Uy took over Malampaya gas field via a company with $100 capital. It now earns the Davao City businessman $1.15 million a day. Another Uy firm earlier entered Malampaya and also makes $1.15 million a day. The combined daily $2.3 million should be going to the government, had energy officials done their duty.

Those are the crux of a graft complaint against Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi and Uy. Filed with the Ombudsman Oct. 18, the rap alleges that:

• Uy’s Malampaya Energy and UC Malampaya are financially, technically and legally unqualified – yet given unwarranted advantage.

• Cusi “grossly, inexcusably neglected” government’s right to match Uy’s offers to buy out Shell and Chevron’s 90-percent interest.

• “Conspiracy” among Cusi, other officials, Uy, Shell and Chevron injured the government.

Complainants are geologist Balgamel Domingo and Filipino-American lawyers Loida Nicolas Lewis and Rodel Rodis.

Udenna Corp., chaired by Uy and parent of the two firms, said Tuesday, “UC Malampaya is qualified to be the shareholder of the Chevron company, and in the future to become the shareholder of the existing operator via Malampaya Energy XP. We were awarded because of the depth of our understanding of the business – how it should be managed and how it can be rejuvenated.”

Cusi texted Gotcha: “Actions taken by the government [on] the private transaction between Chevron, a multinational corporation, and Udenna are proper, legal and in furtherance of the best interests of the government.” The Philippine National Oil Company-Exploration Corp., which Cusi chairs, was constrained by “restrictions imposed by… the Procurement Law and GOCC Governance Law… and the pandemic’s strain on government resources and allowed period under the Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) to exercise the right to match.”

Malampaya offshore gas field in northwest Palawan is the Philippines’ primary petroleum asset, says former PNOC president-CEO and energy undersecretary Eduardo Mañalac. Pumping gas to five power plants in Batangas, it supplies one-fourth of Luzon’s electricity. Operators Shell and Chevron each had 45-percent interest; PNOC-EC has ten. Their JOA will expire in 2024 although the well can be productive at least three more years. The two foreign giants repeatedly had asked the Dept. of Energy for extension till 2039; Shell sought renegotiations on Sep. 3, 2020.

Udenna subsidiary Malampaya Energy XP Pte Ltd. was registered in Singapore on Apr. 7, 2021. Paid-up capital was $100 (P5,000), Senator Sherwin Gatchalian cited the island-state’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority.

On May 20, 2021 Shell Petroleum NV announced the sale of its 45 percent to Malampaya Energy for $460 million. “To be completed by end-2021, it would be retroactively effective Jan. 1, 2021,” Shell said. “Capitalization of this company is only P5,000,” Gatchalian grilled Cusi in a July hearing of his Senate committee on energy.

Cusi doubted the figures, saying, “No, I do not think this is the capital, Mr. Chairman. I have to check this information that is being presented. Because definitely, with P5,000, they will not be allowed to borrow billions of pesos to fund the transaction.”

Gatchalian countered: “If we will be evaluating the buyer… the capitalization is P5,000. Obviously, this is a shell company, correct? And just like the Chevron deal, there is a parent company that will shoulder all the expenses.”

Dennis Uy took over Malampaya gas field via a company with $100 capital. It now earns the Davao City businessman $1.15 million a day. Another Uy firm earlier entered Malampaya and also makes $1.15 million a day. The combined daily $2.3 million should be going to the government, had energy officials done their duty.

Those are the crux of a graft complaint against Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi and Uy. Filed with the Ombudsman Oct. 18, the rap alleges that:

• Uy’s Malampaya Energy and UC Malampaya are financially, technically and legally unqualified – yet given unwarranted advantage.

• Cusi “grossly, inexcusably neglected” government’s right to match Uy’s offers to buy out Shell and Chevron’s 90-percent interest.

• “Conspiracy” among Cusi, other officials, Uy, Shell and Chevron injured the government.

Complainants are geologist Balgamel Domingo and Filipino-American lawyers Loida Nicolas Lewis and Rodel Rodis.

Udenna Corp., chaired by Uy and parent of the two firms, said Tuesday, “UC Malampaya is qualified to be the shareholder of the Chevron company, and in the future to become the shareholder of the existing operator via Malampaya Energy XP. We were awarded because of the depth of our understanding of the business – how it should be managed and how it can be rejuvenated.”

Cusi texted Gotcha: “Actions taken by the government [on] the private transaction between Chevron, a multinational corporation, and Udenna are proper, legal and in furtherance of the best interests of the government.” The Philippine National Oil Company-Exploration Corp., which Cusi chairs, was constrained by “restrictions imposed by… the Procurement Law and GOCC Governance Law… and the pandemic’s strain on government resources and allowed period under the Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) to exercise the right to match.”

Malampaya offshore gas field in northwest Palawan is the Philippines’ primary petroleum asset, says former PNOC president-CEO and energy undersecretary Eduardo Mañalac. Pumping gas to five power plants in Batangas, it supplies one-fourth of Luzon’s electricity. Operators Shell and Chevron each had 45-percent interest; PNOC-EC has ten. Their JOA will expire in 2024 although the well can be productive at least three more years. The two foreign giants repeatedly had asked the Dept. of Energy for extension till 2039; Shell sought renegotiations on Sep. 3, 2020.

Udenna subsidiary Malampaya Energy XP Pte Ltd. was registered in Singapore on Apr. 7, 2021. Paid-up capital was $100 (P5,000), Senator Sherwin Gatchalian cited the island-state’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority.

On May 20, 2021 Shell Petroleum NV announced the sale of its 45 percent to Malampaya Energy for $460 million. “To be completed by end-2021, it would be retroactively effective Jan. 1, 2021,” Shell said. “Capitalization of this company is only P5,000,” Gatchalian grilled Cusi in a July hearing of his Senate committee on energy.

Cusi doubted the figures, saying, “No, I do not think this is the capital, Mr. Chairman. I have to check this information that is being presented. Because definitely, with P5,000, they will not be allowed to borrow billions of pesos to fund the transaction.”

Gatchalian countered: “If we will be evaluating the buyer… the capitalization is P5,000. Obviously, this is a shell company, correct? And just like the Chevron deal, there is a parent company that will shoulder all the expenses.”

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

* * *

Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

6 ways to secure electronic voting

6 ways to secure electronic voting

by | Apr 11, 2023 | Gotcha

PNA photo of vote counting machine testing

GOTCHA

written on October 29, 2021

 

Fourteen years since passage, the 2007 Automated Election System Law has no implementing rules and regulations. The Comelec only issued resolutions for balloting in 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019.

The resolutions were disparate, specific to exigencies. Not a few were contradictory stopgaps. Absent were experts’ inputs from other agencies and the public that the Administrative Code requires. Mistakes were inevitable, some even breaking the very AES Law.

Examples: In April 2016 Comelec had to replace a two-month-old resolution. That was after the Supreme Court ordered it to enable the vote verification feature of the counting machines. In 2010 Comelec deactivated the digital signature system of precinct inspectors. It was a direct breach of the law’s section on authenticating precinct results for electronic transmission to canvassing centers.

Also in 2016 Comelec forbade cameras, cellphones and other image capturing devices inside precincts. That contravened the provision allowing any person to view and photograph election returns and certificates of canvass. Partially correcting itself in 2019, Comelec allowed poll watchers to take pictures of proceedings and incidents during machine testing and sealing, vote counting, transmission and printing of precinct returns.

Two election watchdogs pointed out these issues recently to Comelec commissioners. With only six months till Election Day, it may be impossible to craft IRRs. The Network for Justice and Compassion (NetJC) and the Tagapagtanggol ng Watawat Inc. (TNWI) proposed six ways to make Election 2022 fair, honest and transparent. One Comelec resolution can incorporate the proposals gathered from public consultations:

• Expand to all citizens, not only to poll watchers, the option to photograph election returns and certificates of canvass. The AES Law upholds such right.

• Install a virtual tally board per precinct. That will assure that the votes in the receipt – or voter verifiable paper audit trail – do not just reflect the voters’ choices but are actually counted. At present the machine only spits out the VVPAT for the voter to check that his choices were actually registered, but he cannot know if counted after dropping it into the receipt box.

• The Random Manual Audit should be done publicly immediately after polls close. RMA guidelines should be published well beforehand, and the random selection of precincts be public too. The RMA is an accuracy check of the counting machines. In 2019 one precinct per congressional district or city was chosen for audit. In Metro Manila it was done several days after the balloting. Doubts arose about where the ballots were stored and if secured at all.

• Clarify the secure communication channels to be used along with authentication and codification procedures in electronic transmission of precinct results to canvassing centers. Comelec must consider all interested watchdogs to be given access to all system logs. That can guarantee integrity and transparency of transmission up to the National Board of Canvassers and its disaster recovery sites. Section 7 of the AES Law, amended by R.A. No. 9369, requires all electronic transmissions to have secure communication channels as recommended by the Comelec Advisory Council.

• Allow teachers serving as election inspectors and canvassers to change the individual identification codes that Comelec initially assigns to them. This is like keying in a personal identification number after the bank generates a temporary one. Three hundred thousand teachers will be given the codes as digital signatures in transmitting the results. The Philippine National Public Key Infrastructure will issue the codes under agreement among the Comelec, Dept. of Education and Dept. of Information and Communication Technology.

• Prepare and publish a continuity plan in case of system breakdown or disaster. Lack of such plan at present creates a huge gap or disruption in the balloting chain. Various Comelec resolutions only provide contingencies for failure of counting machines and consolidation-canvassing system. But there is none for the transparency server, national canvassing servers and other processing servers. Section 13 of the law states: “The AES shall be so designed to include a continuity plan in case of a systems breakdown or any such eventuality which shall result in the delay, obstruction or non-performance of the electoral process.”

NetJC trustee Atty. Ronaldo Reyes and TNWI trustees Arnel Victor Valeña and Marlon Anthony Tonson sent the six proposals last Oct. 1. Addressees: Comelec chairman Sheriff Abas and commissioners Rowena Guanzon, Socorro Inting, Marlon Casquejo, Antonio Kho Jr. and Aimee Ferolino.

Invited by Senator Risa Hontiveros to the Comelec’s 2022 budget hearing, they held initial discussions on Oct. 19.

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

* * *

Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

Manchurian Candidates imperil Phl sea patrols

Manchurian Candidates imperil Phl sea patrols

by | Apr 11, 2023 | Gotcha

PNA photo of Philippine map

GOTCHA

written on October 27, 2021

 

Air and sea patrols secure the vast Philippine waters. Filipino fishermen, merchants and surveyors need their protection.

China aggresses such deterrents. In February 2020, a Chinese warship aimed its gun control director at a Philippine Navy patrol near Malampaya gas field, 36 miles from Palawan. A control director readies all weapons to fire instantly at a pinpointed target. The Filipino sailors were unfazed.

Manchurian Candidates in Election 2022 scorn the patrols. Parroting Communist China, the collaborators propagandize that any Filipino defense buildup incites war. Supposedly, the jets and fastcraft will be crushed within days of battle, so why waste money. If elected they will deprive Filipino flyboys and sailors of equipment and supplies. China can then complete its occupation of the West Philippine Sea.

Beijing mocks Manila’s diplomatic calls to leave the WPS. Two hundred-forty Chinese militia trawlers at first swarmed Julian Felipe (Whitsun) Reef in March-May, then spread out to the Kalayaan Isles and Recto Bank. Reinforced by a hundred more, they each poached 12,000 kilos of fish a day till August. Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin fired off 153 protests, nearly one a day. Satellite images show 30 trawlers till today at Del Pilar (Iroquois) Reef, 150 miles off Palawan. All are within the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

Chinese Navy and Coast Guard gunboats escort the fish thieves. President Rodrigo Duterte’s actions embolden them. He set aside the 2016 Hague ruling against China’s trespass in Philippine EEZ. He verbally agreed with President Xi Jinping for Chinese to fish there, no limits on area, duration and tonnage. He withdrew the Philippine military from joint patrols and drills with allies.

The People’s Liberation Army-Navy reports directly to the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Military Commission. So do the China Coast Guard and the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia. As CCP general-secretary, Xi Jinping heads the CMC.

China’s more than 500 “civilian” Coast Guard ships are equipped with cannons. Fifty have missiles. Two are extra-large, at 12,000-ton displacement, dwarfing the 8,000-ton destroyers of Asian navies. Filipinos are shooed away from traditional fishing grounds with machine guns.

The 6,000 militia trawlers are 60-meters long, the size of two basketball courts. The CCP equips them with light arms, communications and spyware. Steel hulls are reinforced for ramming. At Recto Bank in 2019, one such steel trawler rammed an anchored wooden fishing boat, then abandoned the 26 Filipinos thrown overboard.

The largest Philippine Coast Guard and fisheries craft are 40 meters long. The PNP-Maritime Command assists with rubber boats. Chinese trespassers have the temerity to radio them to leave Philippine waters.

Still, Filipino patrols go on, assures Vice Admiral Ramil Roberto Enriquez, AFP Western Command chief. He does not expect Chinese warships to stop radio challenges and other harassments to justify their intrusion. “What we’ll do is continue reporting and continue telling the world that we do not recognize their authority over the area,” he says. “We will not stop.”

Philippine patrols are outgunned. Manchurian Candidates will disarm them further. The traitors’ loyalty is to the CCP, not to Filipino servicemen.

*      *      *

How do the presidential candidates stand on China?

Panfilo Lacson has warned about 3,000 Chinese army spies on “immersion mission” in Filipino communities and organizations. He wants alignment with world powers that are against China’s aggression.

Bongbong Marcos declared: “There are those who say that we should buy patrol boats and jets just in case we get to fight. Why would we think we will fight? That war will be over in less than a week. We’re defeated already.” He was special guest at a Chinese embassy event last week. In a 2018 Facebook post, he hails the CCP delegation that he and his mother hosted for lunch at their home.

Isko Moreno favors joint oil and gas development with China – under Philippine service contracts; that is, within Philippine laws. “What matters most to me is that the existing resources be utilized as soon as possible,” he said the other week. “Kung may langis, e di mapapamura ko ang kuryente ng mga tao.”

Manny Pacquiao finds wanting Duterte’s China policy. He says the President should toughen up like in the 2016 election campaign to gain Beijing’s respect.

Vice President Leni Robredo is open to cooperation with China on trade and investment. On the WPS, she says, “We cannot deal with them without their recognition of the arbitral ruling.”

*      *      *

Correction: In Gotcha Oct. 22, 2021 (“Sleazy procurements follow a pattern”), I misstated that Pharmally Inc. “cornered P42 billion” in government procurements of pandemic supplies. From Senate investigations, the newborn shop, with presidential Chinese friend Michael Yang as financier-guarantor, bagged P12 billion in ten months. That P12 billion is 19,200 times its paid-up capital of P625,000. Apologies for any confusion.

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

* * *

Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

Sleazy procurements follow pattern/Duque explains ambulance ‘overprice’

Sleazy procurements follow pattern/Duque explains ambulance ‘overprice’

by | Apr 11, 2023 | Gotcha

PNA photo of Health Secretary Francisco Duque

GOTCHA

written on October 22, 2021

 

Scandalous government procurements follow a pattern. Deals are cooked behind closed doors, not publicly bidded. Contractors are patently favored even if financially and technically unqualified. Denials of wrongdoing are profuse. The President is dragged down in stench defending his men.

PH Trams was only two months old when awarded the Metro Rail Transit-3 maintenance in 2012, exposed here in Gotcha. Its paid-up capital was only P62,500 (the minimum required for P1-million authorized). It had no experience in rails. “Emergency” negotiations were rushed. Then it was awarded P575 million over ten months – 9,200 times its worth.

The transport department transferred the contract to two other inexperienced firms. But the same ruling party financiers were behind them. Then-president Noynoy Aquino ignored the resulting deterioration of MRT-3. His administration became so reviled. The transport secretary was indicted in 2018. The MRT-3 chief was convicted in 2020.

Pharmally Inc. was only six months old when contracted for emergency pandemic supplies starting April 2020. Its paid-up capital was only P625,000 (for P10-million authorized). Financier-guarantor was presidential Chinese friend and economic adviser Michael Yang. Prices of personal protective equipment, face masks and shields were negotiated. In ten months it cornered P42 billion – 67,200 times its worth.

Starpay was faltering when tasked to disburse more than P50 billion in “ayuda” in 2020, senators allege. With only P62,500 paid-up capital, it bagged 800,000 times its worth. It was unable to pay out P8.2 billion to more than two million needy families.

President Rodrigo Duterte’s popularity is dropping deep and fast.

*      *      *

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III replies to the points raised by Sen. Panfilo Lacson in Gotcha, 8 Oct. 2021, “P841-M Overpriced Ambulances, P2.7-B Expired Meds Unexplained.” Lacson had alleged P1-million overprice in each of 841 ambulances procured by the Dept. of Health. He deduced this by comparing the DOH purchase price with that of two local government units and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office. The LGUs and PCSO had copied the DOH specs, including all the accessory equipment. Lacson also advised Duque to look into a possible procurement Mafia in DOH behind the P2.7 billion in expired, expiring and overstocked medicines year after year, same brands, same suppliers.

Duque says: “The DOH has always been open and transparent in all transactions, and remains committed to improving processes to better serve the people. It takes cognizance of any allegation of irregularities, and has always been open to inquiries and discussions to address such matters.

“On ‘overpriced’ ambulances, the DOH sets the record straight that the 839 units are within the approved budget, compliant with licensing standards set in DOH Administrative Order 2018-0001, and underwent competitive, fair bidding.

“In 2019 the DOH, through its 17 Centers for Health Development and 54 hospitals, procured Type 1 ambulances, fitted with 30 life support equipment for transporting patients in acute medical peril, for trained responders to apply immediate medical interventions.

“The implementing units procured the ambulances between P2.1 to P2.5 million each, all within the Approved Budget Contract of P2.5 million.

“In surveys conducted with some LGUs and PCSO, it was found that the ambulances bought at around P1.5 million per unit are only fitted with 10 to 12 basic equipment, meant only to transport patients in a non-immediate life-threatening condition.

“The DOH submitted to the Senate on Oct. 4, 2021 all pertinent documents on the ambulance procurement, such as bidding documents from the health facilities, Terms of Reference and policy references. These ambulances are distributed to the implementing units, indispensable in providing swift medical intervention and in saving lives.

“As to the Senate inquiry on the P2.7-billion expired, overstocked and near-expiry items flagged by the Commission on Audit, the DOH clarifies that these refer to the total inventories from 2013 to 2020.

“In 2020, the COA found about P95 million worth of expired, overstocked and near-expiry inventories. Delivery of medical services is untenably affected by the COVID-19 pandemic due to the enforced mobility restrictions and physical contact, and fear of people to go to health facilities. Some facilities experienced decreased admissions for other illnesses and low turnout of hospital confinement, resulting in the low utilization of inventory and inevitable overstocking of medicines.

“Nevertheless, we assure the public that corrective measures are being taken by our operating units such as transfer of slow-moving/idle stocks to facilities where most needed, and requests to suppliers for replacement of near-expiry items.

“In 2018 DOH established a Procurement and Supply Chain Management Team which steps away from the traditional vertical management approach in which each health program has a separate supply chain system, and which paved the way to the creation of the Supply Chain Management Service in 2019. The SCMS has significantly acted for the decline in the quantity of expired or near-expiry drugs, medicines and other health commodities.

“Even with our non-attendance in the hearings to give way to COVID-19 response related tasks, we continue to give our full support and cooperation to the Senate. We will submit data and documents they have requested, as we have been doing in the past weeks, to aid the investigations. We are one in their pursuit of truth and accountability.”

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

* * *

Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

How to detect China’s Manchurian Candidate

How to detect China’s Manchurian Candidate

by | Apr 11, 2023 | Gotcha

photo captured from philstar’s Youtube video

GOTCHA

written on October 20, 2021

 

As it does elsewhere, the Chinese Communist Party will meddle in Philippine Election 2022. Manchurian Candidates are prepared to do its bidding should they win. Voters must detect who these are.

The CCP aims to control our president and Congress. By consequence, also the Supreme Court and the bureaucracy that they fill up. As CCP’s general secretary, President Xi Jinping is tightening domestic grip and expanding overseas supremacy. Already the People’s Liberation Army has grabbed nine reefs, shoals and islets in our West Philippine Sea. CCP gunboats and maritime militia deter Filipino fishing and oil and gas exploration. With a puppet Philippine government, the CCP can gain footholds to invade Taiwan and trespass our Pacific side. Co-opting politicians and parties worldwide is China’s strategy as the new imperialist.

Manchurian Candidates are secret collaborators with foreign powers. The term derives from the 1959 novel of Richard Condon.

Manchurian Candidates can be national or local. Such politicos are where the CCP has interests, said retired Philippine Navy vice commander, Rear Admiral Rommel Jude Ong.

How to discern them? Avoiding identities, Ong, now a professor of praxis at the Ateneo de Manila University, prescribes five ways:

• Ask them to state their position on China’s aggression in the WPS. They cannot, should not hide it,” Ong told Sapol-dwIZ last Saturday.

Candidates can be made to sign their stand. That can help avert a Duterte-like flip-flop. In the 2016 presidential debates, Duterte had hyperbolized to “jetski to the Spratlys, plant the Filipino flag and declare ‘this is ours’,” only to disavow it years later as a joke and his believers as “stupid.”

• Check out the candidates’ past political affiliations and businesses, particularly if tied to China, whether as principal or middleman. “This is like an official receipt,” said Ong.

Two ex-generals in the Advocates for National Interest suspect that Duterte’s longtime Chinese businessman-friend and former economic adviser Michael Yang is a China “state agent.” Yang is linked in the Pharmally scandal, in which the administration procured P12-billion pandemic supplies from a newborn shop with only P625,000 capital.

• Find out who their advisers, financiers and top campaigners are. Candidates may not be directly influenced by Chinese agents but by Filipino conduits around them, Ong said.

Revelations of political influencing by Chinese contributors to Australian and New Zealand parties sparked investigations. American and European officials have been forced to resign due to aides’ links to CCP officers.

• The CCP supports Manchurian Candidates with disinformation. Communist China is a master of propaganda, Ong said. Fake news proliferates online for its chosen ones and against rivals.

Facebook has shut down hundreds of accounts in Fujian, China for “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” The troll farms dwelt on Philippine political events. Frequently bashed were Vice President Leni Robredo and critics of China’s sea aggression, retired Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio and former foreign secretary Albert del Rosario.

• CCP influencing at local levels can be via sister-province or -city arrangements. Such ties with other countries normally are for economic, cultural and tourist exchange. But in China’s case, counterparts are communist cadres, Ong said.

Foremost targets are locales facing the West Philippine Sea and Benham Rise with military value to the CCP, Ong added. In 2019, a Chinese firm tried to lease Fuga Island off the tip of Northern Luzon from the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority. The defense department objected. Had the deal not been exposed, the PLA could have gained control of the narrow sea lane between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea and threatened Philippine security. Separate attempts were made on two islands at the mouth of Subic Bay, Zambales, where the Philippine Navy is to set up a shipyard.

In 2015, a China state firm wangled a 99-year lease on a port in Darwin, Australia adjacent to a United States naval base. In the Maldives, another Chinese company leased a reef for concreting into an Indian Ocean island seaport.

*   *   *

“Bongbong Marcos appears one of few candidates to agree with Duterte’s policy of engagement with Beijing,” Fitch Country Risk assessed weeks ago. Duterte’s stance is appeasement. The son of deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos said it is “the right way to go.”

Marcos parrots the administration’s softness towards CCP’s incursions in the West Philippine Sea, newspapers note. “There are those who say that we should buy patrol boats and jets just in case we get to fight. Why would we think we will fight? That war will be over in less than a week. We’re defeated already,” Marcos told reporters at a recent online briefing.

Duterte raises the war bogey whenever criticized about defeatism. Patriots beg him to employ diplomacy to assert Manila’s July 2016 arbitral victory against China’s reef grabbing. Suggestions range from mustering ASEAN and Western support, to tabling the issue before the UN General Assembly. Duterte instead withdrew Philippine patrols near the stolen reefs.

Marcos has special ties with the CCP. In a 2018 Facebook post, he hails its delegation that he and his mother hosted for lunch. He proclaims his Ilocos Norte home province as China’s gateway to the Philippines. China’s posts in turn claim he is best for its overseas nationals.

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

* * *

Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

E-sabong hooking kids, OFWs

E-sabong hooking kids, OFWs

by | Apr 11, 2023 | Gotcha

PNA photo of Sab0ng

GOTCHA

written on October 15, 2021

 

Online sabong is luring minors and addicting overseas workers. Gambling is brought right into homes and barracks. Families are wrecked, crimes incited and society corrupted. Still Congress is franchising “e-sabong” firms for 25 years. Strangely, Church leaders are silent.

Cockfights are livestreamed to personal gadgets. Bets and winnings are paid online. Enticement of bettors is indiscriminate. Minors aged 17 and younger technically are barred. But aided and abetted by “qualified” adults, they can sneak into the tele-cockpit.

A former congressman confided how a tenth-grade nephew was victimized. Not only did the lad fritter away personal savings, but also began filching cash from parents and siblings. The family discovered everything when he tried to hock home appliances. The long-time housemaid secretly had helped him set up an e-sabong account. That story is replicated countless times, NGOs lament.

Four recent suicides were induced in Bulacan and Pampanga, Deputy Speaker Eddie Villanueva said. All were despondent over huge gambling losses.

E-sabong illegally sprouted a decade ago. Initial clients were lonely OFWs, with some instantly hooked. Reports filtered in to labor circles about bettors losing overseas earnings and getting mired in debt.

The racket boomed in the homeland starting with the pandemic lockdowns in March 2020. Philippine laws limit cockfights only to licensed cockpits, one per city or municipality, and only on specified days and fiestas. But confined to homes, afficionados and newbies turned online.

E-sabong grosses P1.8 billion a day. Payout is 90 percent. Two major operators and three small ones net ten percent or P180 million a day.

Per major operator, about P5 million in bets are placed per “sultada.” That fight to the death lasts some five minutes, to make 12 fights per hour, for P60 million. The games run for ten hours a day, for P600 million total. Multiply that by three – two biggies and the combined take of the small operators. The P1.8 billion daily gross is P657 billion a year.

In April, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation began to regulate and tax the five operators. Their probity, capability and vulnerability to money laundering are being assessed, said Assistant VP Atty. Arnold Salvosa. Technologies for responsible gaming are developed, like apps to check each bettor’s playtime and biometrics to restrict minors. It’s a work in progress.

An undetermined number of “colorums” hold underground “tupadas” daily. Police raids average one per week. Among the biggest was by the NBI two months ago. More than 250 syndicate bosses, helpers, cockers and bettors were arrested. Games were being beamed to online gamers.

E-sabong addiction spurs crimes. Sensational was the arrest of a Quezon City policeman for a series of robberies last May. He targetted two courier service shops in one day in San Miguel and San Ildefonso towns in Bulacan. He confessed to earlier robbing similar businesses in Cabanatuan, Zaragoza and Gapan in his Nueva Ecija home-province. Seeing him on TV news, convenience storekeepers robbed in Marilao and Malolos, also in Bulacan, rushed to the precinct to identify him. “He became obsessed with e-sabong,” an interrogator told reporters.

Last Sep. 13, the House of Reps rushed a 25-year e-sabong franchise for Lucky-8 Star Quest Inc. It took only a day to move the measure from committee recommendation, inclusion in the order of business, period of sponsorship and approval on second reading. “Inordinate haste,” former Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano cried. Lucky-8 is associated with Charlie “Atong” Ang, implicated in the 2001 plunder case against deposed President Joseph Estrada.

Two weeks later, the House committee on franchises suddenly endorsed to the plenary another 25-year e-sabong franchise for Visayas Cockers Club. Sponsor: Negros Oriental Rep. Arnolfo Teves. Villanueva complained to committee head Franz Alvarez the non-livestreaming of the supposedly public hearing, catching oppositors unaware.

The rushing of the franchise bills preceded the congressional break for filing of costly candidacies for Election 2022.

Lucky-8 and Visayas Cockers are not public utilities or services like water, power, transportation and telecoms. Franchising their e-sabong negates the law that makes Pagcor the country’s sole gaming franchisee. Unless extended, Pagcor’s corporate life is only till 2033. The e-sabong franchises are up to 2046.

The franchises would allow offsite cockfight betting. That contradicts the 1974 Cockfighting Law. The law upholds the native tradition and thus limits betting only inside cockpits on certain days. Franchises can make e-sabong 24/7, so long as there are Filipino bettors worldwide.

The franchises also set a special five-percent tax on gross earnings. Brick-and-mortar cockpits do not enjoy such special rate. Constitutional equal protection is violated.

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

* * *

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Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

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