Surreal: a ‘hearing’ in the Senate,
a briefing at the Palace
By Butch Fernandez and Mia Gonzalez
Reporters
DESPITE pronouncements by various agencies that the multibillion-peso funds of overseas Filipino workers are intact and ready for their use in the Middle East, Malacañang refused to allow executive officials to testify Monday at the Senate labor committee hearing on government plans to move out overseas Filipino workers affected by the Lebanon crisis.
Senate probers said the Palace action, made amid persistent claims by the Executive that the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) funds are intact, merely fueled suspicion of irregularity.
The snub resulted in the awkward scenario of executive officials briefing reporters in Malacañang while members of the Senate labor committee faced empty chairs just a few kilometers away.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, in a letter to labor committee chairman Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, declined the Senate invitation because it “does not refer to any possible statute that prompted the inquiry,” among other reasons.
But Sen. Richard Gordon, who filed a resolution that triggered the Senate inquiry, warned that the nonappearance of the invited Palace and OWWA officials “opens up Malacañang to more probing questions on the OWWA fund issue. “This issue will fester because they did not show up,” Gordon added.
The ambassador to Lebanon, Al Francis Bichara, found time, though, to respond to senators’ questions in a videoconference during the hearing. He confirmed that the latest order from Manila is to evacuate all OFWs in southern Lebanon.
Under questioning by senators, Bichara admitted the OFW evacuation encountered funding difficulties with the Philippine Embassy advancing the money for the initial phase of the withdrawal of Filipinos from war-torn areas.
“I had to ask to find out that OWWA released $19,000 for evacuation funds and was told that the money was deposited in the personal account of an OWWA officer,” Bichara said.
This prompted Sen. Joker Arroyo to point out that while the OWWA has collected over P8 billion from departing OFWs, “it sent only $19,000 for evacuation, when under the law they are the ones in charge of situations like this. Where are they hoarding the OWWA money?” Arroyo asked. He also pointed out that under RA 8042, all costs of OFW repatriation shall be borne by the OWWA.
Across town, meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said the fate of Ambassador Bichara, who stirred a controversy when he alleged that the embassy in Lebanon has no more funds for evacuation operations, would be determined by the DFA “at the proper time.”
“Right now he is the ambassador. As ambassador he is head of mission. He has prime control of everybody there. We have emphasized that. Just like the military, we follow the chain of command. As long as he stays in his post, he is commander on the ground. And we will hold him to that,” he said.
Conejos also said that while the DFA’s man in Israel, Ambassador Antonio Modena, has submitted a proposal of a standby fund in preparation for a possible evacuation from Israel, “at this time, there is no necessity to evacuate anybody from Israel, and the ambassador is most emphatic about that.”
Still, those familiar with the DFA and OWWA processes noted that a standby fund was exactly being sought by ambassadors because the violence or risk to Filipinos’ safety may suddenly escalate, and there would be little time left for Philippine consular officials to only start looking for funds then.
Debunking Palace officials’ concerns that the senators may just be on a fishing expedition, Gordon shot back that he filed the resolution calling for a Senate inquiry because “nobody was giving us a full answer on what OWWA officials would do for our OFWs if the situation worsens in Lebanon.”
He added, “We need this inquiry because relatives of the 34,000 OFWs affected by the Lebanon crisis need to know what the government is doing for them.”
According to Senator Estrada, the “statutes” that Ermita wanted listed in the Senate invitation were in Gordon’s Senate Resolution 515 calling for an inquiry, particularly Republic Act 8042, also known as the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995.
“The refusal of Malacañang to let its officials attend the Senate hearing is a clear indication of a Palace cover-up of the massive depletion of OWWA funds,” Senator Estrada said.
A pending case at the Ombudsman is questioning an OWWA resolution transferring P500.3 million of OWWA Medicare funds to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. on February 2, 2004, or barely three months before the May 2004 presidential elections.
Because of the no-show by the Palace officials, senators may decide to first submit a preliminary committee report that the disbursements of OWWA funds, now estimated at P8 billion to P10 billion, cannot be explained.
The senators are still deliberating on whether the no-show officials should be served subpoenas if another hearing is called by the committee.
In a Palace news briefing held at the same time as the Senate inquiry, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye read a letter sent by Ermita to Estrada, chairman of the Senate labor committee, explaining his nonappearance, together with other government officials.
Besides claiming they were not told what statutes are proposed to be covered by remedial legislation, he added that “all of the government officials invited to the inquiry are currently engaged in critical operations to get our OFWs in Lebanon out of harm’s way, and bring them home to the Philippines.”
He also said that Ermita is expected to send a similar letter to the House of Representatives when the latter sends an invitation to for a similar inquiry. OWWA Administrator Marianito Roque, among those asked to appear in the Senate hearing, said in the Palace briefing he is prepared to face the inquiry at a later date when the evacuation process in Lebanon slows down.
---With C. Jimenez
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