MikeLigalig.com

After making a big issue of the alleged indiscretions of the previous Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office management, including, among others, picking a fight over the agency’s donation of SUVs to some bishops, only to retract the unfair accusations later, current PCSO Chairman Margie Juico and her crew are now facing a number of malpractice charges themselves.
For example, the public awaits the explanation of Juico and company, about the rationale of the transfer of their offices from Quezon City to the PICC in Pasay City and detail the actual expenses used for what some sectors termed a precipitate and unwarranted transfer.
Too, Juico and her crew have yet to fully explain the continued non-implementation of a much hyped “loterya ng bayan” program designed precisely to minimize if not completely eradicate the illegal numbers game jueteng and its permutations, i.e., two balls, suertres, etc., and write finis to the misuse of the existing small- town lottery (STL) operations as front for such illegal activities despite millions of pesos spent to  “research, conceptualize and promote” it as a viable alternative.
Now, Juico and company have been charged by the local gaming unit of Malaysian conglomerate Berjaya Group, PGMC, which has an exclusive equipment leasing agreement for Luzon for the agency’s highly profitable lotto operations, of brazenly violating the said agreement by letting a competitor provide the said equipment to certain areas in Luzon while the Berjaya exclusivity remains and, worse, without the benefit of public bidding. The court has since issued a permanent injunction on PCSO not to proceed with its initiative to sub-lease, as it were, parts of Berjaya’s Luzon operations. Notwithstanding such court order, PCSO continuing disobeying the orders and thus declared in contempt by the court.
The writ of preliminary injunction issued last September yet “categorically ordered the respondents, PCSO board members Margarita Juico, Ma. Aleta Tolentino, Betty Nantes, Mabel Mamba and Francisco Joaquin III, and all their lawyers, representatives, agents, assigns and any other persons assisting them, to refrain from engaging in lotto operations in Luzon after the agency allowed Pacific Online Systems Corp. to lease lottery equipment for lottery operations in Luzon. PGMC cited Pacific Online’s disclosure dated June 1 in which the listed firm entered into an agreement with PCSO, allowing the company to lease to the agency lottery equipment for its online lottery operations in Luzon.
This new Pacific Online deal violated the exclusivity agreement between PCSO and PGMC over the Luzon area, and the prohibition against entering into government contracts without a prior public bidding. Under PGMC’s agreement with PCSO, which will expire on August 2015, the Berjaya unit will be the sole provider or exclusive source for all lottery equipment in Luzon. PCSO will also pay PGMC rentals for all lottery operations in Luzon.
Whether Juico and her board will continue to defy the orders of the court remains to be seen. Suffice it to say that despite all their pronouncements the present board headed by Juico is already suffering from the same disease which they claim consumed the previous board — the brazen disregard of the law and the arrogance of power. Tsk... tsk.


Speaking of arrogance and brazen disregard of the law, the Malaysian US Navy contractor, Glenn Defense Asia, has apparently acquired the same disease as the PCSO board courtesy of its lawyers, Villaraza Cruz Marcelo and Angangco law, after being charged for illegally dumping toxic wastes coming from US Navy ships by the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). The law firm maintained that the SBMA does not have any jurisdiction over the said illegal dumping issue against Glenn Defense Asia as the same is only cognizable by the Presidential Commission on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFACOM).
If that is not a clear if not sickening misreading of the VFA law and the applicable laws on waste disposal and related environmental concerns I don’t know what is. Obviously, dumping is dumping and Glenn Asia’s resort to such a subterfuge is totally illegal and unacceptable. No less than Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, a constitutional and international law expert, has averred that the VFA law does not cover such illegal operations. The Iloilo solon noted that the dumping of toxic wastes by Glenn defense Asia was not only a violation of the VFA law but an “infraction of international covenants on maritime pollution and national laws on toxic wastes.”
Santiago noted that the VFACOM was only a “...monitoring body mandated to submit regular reports to the President on the status of visiting US forces in the country...” and that the act of polluting was a clear violation of Article II of the VFA law which states in part that it is the duty of the United states personnel to respect the laws of the Republic of the Philippines... the government of the United States shall take all measures within its authority to ensure that this is done.”
Santiago also cited obligations codified under Articles 192 and 211 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLoS) as well as those under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships which provides, among others, for the “protection and preservation of the environment in general and to prevent pollution from vessels in particular.”  She also noted that the VFA law cannot supersede or even go against the Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes Control Act (RA 6969) which prohibits “the storage, importation or bringing into Philippine territory, including its maritime economic zones, even in transit, either by means of land, air or sea transportation or otherwise keeping in storage any amount of hazardous and nuclear wastes in any part of the Philippines.”
So, what is Glenn Defense Asia and its high powered law firm talking about? They cannot and should not be allowed to make a mockery of our environmental laws much less use the VFA law as a cover for the company’s misdeeds. Period.



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