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Teves orders CTPL playing field leveled

BLURBAL THRUSTS

Louie Logarta

09/27/2007

The devious plan of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) to create a monopoly in the Compulsory Third Party Liability (CTPL) insurance business has been effectively shot down by the Department of Finance.

This dovetails with the recent decision of Judge Cesar Santamaria of the Makati City Regional Trial Court in issuing a temporary restraining order in favor of the Philippine Insurance and Reinsurance Association, the umbrella group of over 30,000 non-life insurance workers, which prevents DoTC Secretary Leandro Mendoza from appointing the GSIS as the sole CTPL insurer for more than six million motor vehicles all over the country. CTPL refers to the insurance cover being required by the Land Transportation Office (LTO), one of the attached agencies of the DoTC, during registration of motor vehicles.

In a recent directive, Finance chief Margarito Teves gave instructions to Insurance Commissioner Eduardo Malinis to devise a compromise plan that would level the playing field, meaning that no stakeholder should be disenfranchised. Because under DoTC Order (DO) 2007-28, which Mendoza was rushing to implement, literally thousands of non-life insurance workers were facing economic dislocation.

Mendoza and his advisers feebly claimed their main motive in formulating DO 2007-28 was actually to protect thousands of hapless motorists, who were paying their premiums from falling prey each year to unscrupulous fly-by-night insurance firms; but the reality is that if it is enforced, it would gobble up hundreds of legitimate non-life insurance firms and render jobless around 560 general sales agents, 10,000 direct workers and 33,000 sales agents.

The Bureau of Customs (BoC) is dragging its feet regarding the payment of some P30 million in reward money to a group of police officers, many of whom have long retired from active service and are now in their seventies, who were instrumental in the seizure in La Union province of a foreign vessel laden with highly taxable articles including several thousand liters of crude oil nearly two decades ago.

The claimants — Police Senior Superintendents Romeo Pimentel (ret.), Ruben Zacarias (ret.), Gil Meneses (active), P/Insp. Romeo Cudia and lawyer Virgilio Pablico — had sought the assistance of Malacañang to hasten the release of their money after it became clear Customs officials were trying to weasel out of their obligation.

In an order dated Aug. 22, 2007, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita directed concerned Customs officials to prepare the order of payment to Pimentel et al. who had been waiting since 1989 for the reward money that had been assured them by the government in cognizance of their efforts in apprehending the vessel which had somehow been diverted there from its mooring place in Manila Bay.

Ermita was reportedly constrained to order Commissioner Napoleon Morales to settle with the claimants when they agreed to payment through “restitution by substitution” wherein the monies to be given to them would be taken from the proceeds of the public auction of forfeited goods, not directly from the Land Bank of the Philippines where the BoC deposits the billions it collects from importers.

It is clear what these dickheads from the Office of the Commissioner were doing all this time — they were purposely trying to delay remittance of the reward money legally and morally due the claimants under existing laws in the hope that they would become feeble and all die of old age, and then presto, there wouldn’t be anyone left to claim the P30 million.

A radio commentator of Bombo Radyo, who couldn’t afford to pay for a lawyer, is currently serving time in the Davao Penal Colony after being convicted of the crime of libel for linking one of the most powerful members of the House of Representatives who hails from Mindanao to an alleged sexual escapade.

At the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City, a small-time drug pusher will be spending 16 years in jail after he was sentenced by the Manila Regional Trial Court for selling 0.04 grams of shabu.

Meanwhile, according to one newspaper article, a Department of Public Works and Highways private contractor identified as Jaime Ponce de Leon, who was meted by two Sandiganbayan divisions a total prison term of 203 years for 27 counts of graft in connection with ghost projects in the province of Negros Occidental, was able to secure for himself a conditional pardon from Mrs. Arroyo and will not be serving a minute behind bars. He will, however, have to pay P1.16 million in penalties and be banned from holding any position in government for life.

This is justice, Philippine-style.