Kubradors, troubadours, contractors

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March L. Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- They’re back. On the first day of this month, they re-invaded their turf. They were back on their usual routes in barangays, in the market, eskinitas and even in government offices.
    If the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) can allow tourists to now ramble around, why can’t they. That could have been the reason jueteng operators were compelled to let loose their bet collectors back on the streets.
    And since most kubradors for jueteng are the bet collectors for Small Town Lottery (STL), the latter has also resumed operations after six months of suspension due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as long as they maintained the minimum health standards set by the task force.
    Many if not all jueteng kubradors involved in guerilla operations wear STL green vests and use IDs issued for STL. Senator Ping Lacson said this years ago, further saying that the police know it because it is happening on the ground. On many occasions, the police had been accused for lack of commitment to get rid of jueteng.
    Exactly, jueteng and guerilla operations may be the reasons PCSO is not complaining about its collection from STL operators. Is it because operators still have enough room for guerrilla operations?
    The senator then urged the PCSO to maximize its collection of the required remittance from authorized agent corporations (AACs) called presumptive monthly retail receipts (PMRR), so it could get its full share from franchises and operators and limit the elbow room for guerrilla operations.
    Last week’s news reports confirmed that the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) already issued a circular to all 61 ACCs allowing them to continue after their STL and lotto operations were suspended in March.
    However, this year’s operation will not be part of the “new normal” brought about by the pandemic because as usual, STL comes back but jueteng comes back with it.
    Again, PCSO will not mind being “cheated” in its STL operations as Sen. Lacson, now vice-chair of the Senate Committee on Games and Amusement which he chaired in the past, estimated that P50 billion a year is lost in STL operations.
    Sen. Lacson claimed in 2017 that jueteng collections reached an estimated P50 billion a year or P50 million to P65 million daily as compared to P6.4 billion generated from STL operations in a previous year.
    The computation for the PMRR is arrived at by considering the 30 per cent of the voting population multiplied by P2.50 average bet, by three draws a day and by 30 days. But how can the PCSO maximize its collection when the operator of STL in an area is the jueteng operator himself, if not in cahoots with jueteng personalities?
***
When the Luzon-wide lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic took effect on March 17, 2020; one portion of society that was heavily affected was the live entertainment section dominated by performing musicians and artists all over.
    Their allied workers in the night spots such as the dancers, waitresses and waiters, dishwashers and kitchen helpers suddenly became jobless and useless. This sector should have been given a special share of the Social Amelioration Fund under the “Bayanihan to Heal as One” law.
    With the economy reopening slowly but necessarily, local IATF should consider allowing the troubadours and their partners back to their workplace since these people also have families to support.
    As in dine-in restaurants and fast food joints where tables were rearranged in observance of health protocols, the same can be done in watering holes and entertainment bars. With a live band covering Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind'', a table for two is just perfect.
***
While it may not be illegal or unlawful, the act of inserting amounts of money in the national expenditure program for projects in a certain congressional district that becomes the conduit where one gets his share from the inserted amounts, is simply immoral.
    I look at this as money-laundering done in another style. The typical example is for a congressman to insert P1 Billion in the national budget law to fund a road project in a province. Since it takes two to tango, the contractor who bids the project gives back the percentage share of the lawmaker from the amount collected from the project.
    The lawmaker’s share could be equivalent to 20 per cent. Some can go as high as 40 per cent, I was told. In most cases, contractors pay an initial amount even before bidding the project, then pay the balance upon the first collection based on the accomplishment of the project. Some contractors advance the full amount.
    For the lawmaker responsible for the insertion, the money comes easy and unseen. If the funds allocated and inserted in various line agencies has a total of P10 Billion, the expected 40 percentage share is equivalent to P4 billion. Cool and simple.
    Maybe that is why even politicians who are not from Benguet wish to become this province’s congressman. This early, I am told that one of them is distributing public works projects to favored contractors, especially those who are not from Benguet.
It is being spread in public that the politician has been giving dole-outs of cash during meetings with barangay kapitanes and local chief executives, although I suspect the money being given away was from the percentage obligations collected from contractors.
    What is quite disturbing is the manner employed by such a politician in convincing people to accept him as their true representative, with his henchmen making the rounds this early in the 13 municipalities of Benguet.
    In doing those rounds, assurances are made to contractors big and small, while one or two infra projects worth a few millions are promised to each of the 140 Punong Barangays. Be careful. Beautiful things that are attractive and easily offered may be very ugly in the end.
    It is pitiful that Benguet reaches such a situation. It is sad and insulting that because of rosy promises, donations and cash dole-outs; we allow our affairs to be run by an outsider who is unmistakably pushing things for personal gains. In other words, we are selling Benguet if it has not been bought.  
***
Still on public works anomalies, one of the contractors is complaining that a project bidding in Benguet that he participated in has been requested by the BAC to be declared as a “failure” even while his documents have yet to be evaluated.
    In short, he has not been disqualified but the bidding was declared a failure. There was likely a miscommunication but the damage has been done. The only solution to the problem is to award him the contract or else those responsible in destroying the process will reap the consequences.
    To make things worse, the project was rebidded this week even while not all the licensed contractors who participated in its first bidding have yet to be evaluated. The acts committed by the bids committee are clear violations of the anti-graft law and the procurement law.