Garcia’s Ghosts
The controversy arising
from a report by the Commission on Audit (CoA) stating that the
implementation of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) eCard
project is illegal is resurrecting issues on other corruption cases in
which GSIS president and general manager Winston Garcia is said to have
been principally involved.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
The controversy
arising from a report by the Commission on Audit (CoA) revealing that the
implementation of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) eCard
project is illegal is resurrecting issues on other corruption cases in
which Winston Garcia, GSIS president and general manager, is said to have
been involved. Some of these issues date back to as early as 2002.
Garcia was appointed
as GSIS president and general manager in January 2001, shortly after
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed the presidency through a
people-power uprising that was largely against corruption in the Joseph
Estrada administration.
In 2002, the Public
Estates Authority (PEA) secured a P1-billion ($19.37 million based on the
year’s $1:P51.60 exchange rate) for the construction of the President
Diosdado Macapagal Avenue.
PEA director Sulficio
Tagud, Jr. revealed that the project had been overpriced by P533 million –
a disclosure that cost him his position. The loan was approved by then
Presidential Legal Counsel Avelino Cruz, a founding partner of the Carpio,
Villaraza and Cruz (CVC) Law Offices. Cruz is now the defense secretary.
The Macapagal Avenue
project, said lawyer Albert Velasco, president of the Kapisanan ng
Manggagawa ng GSIS (KMG or GSIS Employees Association), resulted in huge
financial losses to the GSIS, which was then already under Garcia.
Luna painting
Later that same year,
the GSIS purchased Parisian Life, a painting by Juan Luna, with its
own funds for P46 million. According to lawyer Albert Velasco, president
of the Kapisanan ng Manggagawa ng GSIS (KMG or GSIS Employees
Association), the GSIS overpriced the Luna painting. The GSIS also
sponsored a national tour of the painting – which to this day has yet to
be financially accounted for, Garcia’s critics say.
In March 2003, the
KMG sent a letter to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo accusing Garcia of
securing P3.4 million $62,730.63 based on the year’s $1:P54.20 exchange
rate) in unliquidated cash advances, and establishing GSIS district
offices and hiring outside legal counsel at exceedingly high prices. The
Department of Finance (DoF) under then Secretary Isidro Camacho, asked by
then Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) chairman Dario Rama to look
into the issues raised by the KMG, found merit in these.
Later that same year,
Garcia courted controversy arising from the stoppage of the processing of
loan applications and benefit claims. Why should GSIS members have
difficult transactions with their own money, government unions asked, when
the GSIS had money for 84 vice presidents with monthly salaries amounting
to more than P100,000 each? His own salary of P540,000 a month was put
into question.
Ordinary government
employees receive an average of only P9,000 a month, based on data from
the Confederation for the Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government
Employees (Courage). The national average daily cost of living for a
family of six – the average Filipino family – was P455.94 a day or
P13,678.20 a month, based on data from the National Statistics Office (NSO).
Last year, Garcia
found himself in hot water for securing a salary loan of P2 million
($35,599.86 based on the year’s average ($1:P56.18 exchange rate) and a
housing loan of P11 million. His salary loan was reported in various
newspapers to have been approved just four hours after he filed it, even
as ordinary GSIS members still had to wait for months before their loan
applications could be approved.
And now comes the
eCard issue. Bulatlat
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