(Continued from last Wednesday. )

MORE FROM former chairman and administrator Felicito Payumo of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), commenting on graft charges filed against him by labor leader David Diwa, who said he filed the charges to defend the present administrator, Armand Arreza, and because Payumo has many things to explain. He accused Payumo of reducing the lease rates of SBMA locators resulting in the loss of P1 billion in rentals by the government.

Payumo explained that the lease rates were reduced at the request of the locators because of the Asian economic crisis of 1998 to 2000 that almost doubled the peso-dollar exchange rate. The locators would not have been able to afford the peso equivalent of the rentals and would have either closed shop or moved out, throwing thousands of Filipino workers out of jobs. Because of the rate reductions, the number of workers in the SBMA increased from 9,000 to 54,000, Payumo said.

Now that I have explained myself, Payumo said, it is the turn of Arreza to do some explaining himself:

?1. Arreza has to explain how 746 kilos of methamphetamine chemicals (shabu) were accumulated in a warehouse inside the Subic Freeport, and how the person who brought in the chemicals was allowed to escape and the ship that brought in the chemicals allowed to leave. Arreza consolidated too much authority in his man, Ferdinand Hernandez, who was in charge of port operations and also of law enforcement. He was in charge of issuing import permits and gate passes at the same time. No check and balance there.

?President Aquino should ask for a copy of the report of the Carolina Grino Aquino Commission which investigated both the Alabang Boys and the Subic shabu cases. The reports have been completed and submitted to President Gloria-Macapagal-Arroyo but was not publicly disclosed. The Subic report has recommended sanctions against certain officials but GMA did nothing. The people should know the truth about this drug smuggling case,? Payumo said.

What does the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency say?

?2. Arreza is lobbying for retention (with the fabulous pay he is getting, why wouldn?t he want to stay?) or to be allowed to finish what he claims is his fixed term up to 2011. But he has no fixed term. He was appointed not under RA 722 but under an executive order which split the position of chairman and administrator. Thus, his appointment can be revoked by another executive order.

?The longer Arreza stays at the SBMA, the more time he will have to cover his tracks on many midnight deals, one of which was already reported in the newspapers. The management of All Hands Beach, which was already earning P23 million, was given to Mark Dayrit, a relative of Alex Dayrit, a director of FSC, a subsidiary of the SBMA that was operating the beach facilities.

?The only obligation of the lucky recipient of the facility management agreement was to remit the entrance fees to the SBMA, amounting to a few million pesos, while pocketing the rest of the P23 million. His only commitment was to invest P10 million over five years. In the first year alone, he would have raked in more than this amount.?

Payumo suspects that Arreza was behind the charges filed against him by Diwa who, the day after he decided to protect Arreza from criticisms, suddenly had copies of the lease contracts with the SBMA locators. Payumo thinks the charges were intended to deflect the attention from Arreza because of the scandal he found himself in due to the exposure of the fabulous salary, allowances, bonuses and other perks he was getting.

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I read in the papers that the government will give P1,400 cash a month to each of some 4.7 million poor Filipino families. The money will come from a loan from the Asian Development Bank that all taxpayers will then pay for. That?s a lot of money.

Wouldn?t it be better to employ the heads of these families instead of giving them the cash outright so that they would not feel like beggars? The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has prohibited begging, even prohibiting people, on pain of arrest, from giving alms to beggars. That is to prevent mendicancy. But here it is encouraging mendicancy by giving cash gifts to poor families instead of making them work for it.

If the poor work for their money, they will have self-respect and won?t feel like beggars. The people need jobs, not doles. So employ them, if only to clean their communities, the creeks, esteros, and rivers of garbage, plant trees, or repair roads.

Imagine the amount of work 4.7 million Filipinos can do. If each of them plants only one tree a day, that would be 4.7 million new trees each day. Multiply that by 365 days a year and soon our bald mountains will be full of trees. If each one of them repairs only one meter of road a day, that means 4.7 million meters of roads repaired each day. And if each one cleans only one meter of a waterway each day, that means 4.7 million meters of waterways cleaned each day. And these people would get the credit for the good work that they have done. They would be proud of it instead of feeling miserable because they are being treated as beggars.

Or make them undergo training for various trades?such as carpentry, masonry, plumbing, etc.?in exchange for the cash gifts so that they can be gainfully employed.

But if you give the men money without them doing anything, then they will just stay home and, having nothing else to do, beget more children. Worse, they may use the money to gamble or to buy drugs. Remember the saying, ?The idle mind is the devil?s workshop.? Keep the people busy to keep them out of mischief.