Midas refutes ‘false suppositions’ in WB loanMidas refutes ‘false suppositions’ in WB loan

The editorial  “Pathetic” (Inquirer, 1/25/12) called me a liar for saying that reports of the World Bank’s release of an aide-mémoire “is now turning out to be fake.” It was fake. Even the opinion piece admits this: “The WB itself said it had not released the report.”

The editorial writer then betrays his motive by alluding to the impeachment complaint against the Chief Justice: “From barring the release of judges and justices’ statements of assets, liabilities and net worth to now taking umbrage at a leak that asks some hard questions, the Judiciary seems steeped in its own brand of omerta.” As I explained in my official statement, “Matthew Stephens, acting country director of the World Bank… stated that ‘[g]iven the deliberative nature of the information, some of which is still to be confirmed, the attached Aide-Mémoire is classified as Official Use Only…and will not be disclosed to the public.’… the Bank confirmed the Aide-Mémoire as confidential and ‘is usually not disclosed to the public.’” An aide-mémoire is a memory-aid, a reminder; in my official statement, I clarified that its contents are “preliminary… and are yet to be finalized after the representatives of the Court and the Bank have deliberated…as what is usually the process.” This is precisely why the aide-mémoire still requests the Court “to please point out any errors or omissions.”

The editorial also wrongly calls my statement—that “the current Aide-Mémoire puts in issue only $199,900 payments as allegedly ‘ineligible’… or only 0.75 percent of the total amount of the loan”—“a minor injury defense,” then asks: “Where did the money go? And isn’t stealing the same under the law, whatever amount gets pilfered?” purposefully ignoring the paragraph immediately following, which directly answers these questions: “[O]ut of the $199,900 supposed ‘ineligibles,’ $147,159 was spent to purchase ICT equipment for the courts, while $22,338 was used to print case digests distributed to the judges. These are in line with the four World Bank project components… The remainder of the supposed ‘ineligibles’ has already been validly charged to the proper funding source.”

Before ending, the editorial takes another stab at its target by falsely reporting that “the irregularities the World Bank noted began only in 2010, when Corona was already the Chief Justice.” The aide-mémoire itself shows this to be a lie; in fact, what it calls “the most significant failure” under the World Bank loan was found to have been caused by “delays [since 2009] in equipping the courts with ICT equipment, vacant judgeships due to retirement have taken years to fill due to the lengthy judicial nomination and appointment process, and the creation of three to four new courts through legislation—promised at project design—has remained pending in the legislature for more than five years now.”

An unfair comment based on false suppositions. There is a law against it.

—JOSE MIDAS P. MARQUEZ,

court administrator,

Supreme Court of the Philippines