Palace lawyer revives call for PCGG abolition
MANILA, Philippines — The call for the abolition of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) was revived Thursday by a Malacañang official after a Quezon City court acquitted former First Lady Imelda Marcos of tax charges.
“It has outlived its purpose,” presidential legal adviser Sergio Apostol said in a phone interview.
And the ax should also fall on the Philippine National Oil Corp. (PNOC), National Power Corp. (Napocor) and other nonperforming government-owned and/or -controlled corporations (GOCCs), Apostol said.
“They should be abolished … because they are not making money anymore,” he said.
Apostol recalled several past studies on the abolition of the PCGG, the agency created during the Aquino administration to go after the ill-gotten assets of the Marcoses, their relatives and cronies.
“All these studies fizzled out,” he said.
Apostol belied allegations Malacañang had something to do with the acquittal of Imelda Marcos on Wednesday by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court on five counts of Tax Code violations due to the prosecution’s failure to establish criminal intent.
“There was no deal,” he said in Filipino and English. “If there was a negotiation, the trial should not have proceeded. But the trial was finished and a decision was issued.”
Apostol pointed out it was the Bureau of Internal Revenue that “decided to pursue this [case] so there’s no reason to think this was part of any deal.”
Apostol admitted, however, that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had been reaching out to her critics, including the Marcoses, as part of her overarching goal of national reconciliation in the post-election period.
“But if a case has basis, it should not be negotiated,” he said.
Asked if the President would order the BIR to seek a reconsideration of the ruling, Apostol said the revenue agency would “automatically” appeal it.
“We will lose a lot. Yes, the government should fight it out through the BIR,” he said.
He said corporations that were sequestered for being part of the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses and which had been cleared of encumbrances by the courts should be sold.
“Nobody is claiming them, so they should be disposed of. That’s the PCGG mandate,” he said.
As for GOCCs, “like the PNOC — three of [its] subsidiaries are not making money — they should be absorbed instead (by the appropriate departments),” Apostol, a former PNOC president, said.
“There’s a law I heard that is proposing the abolition of Napocor. It should be abolished or privatized,” he said.
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