Why Ping de Jesus was sacked, the inside story

By Dr. Dante A. Ang
THE Manila Times story on the forced resignation of DOTC Secretary Jose “Ping” de Jesus was as clear as the sky on a fine day. De Jesus did not resign from the Cabinet. He was fired by President Benigno Aquino 3rd for loss of confidence, to say the least.

De Jesus was summoned to Malacañang on Monday morning at ten by the President. The meeting was brief; merely 15 minutes. He was distressed and looked teary-eyed after his meeting with the Chief Executive.

I do not know de Jesus personally. Never met him before. Fact is, he strikes me as a no-nonsense former Lopez executive. I have absolutely no reason to write ill of the man who, if you believe his spin doctors, resigned out of frustration for not getting the support from the President for the agency’s various projects and over the Virgie Torres issue.

I have it on good authority that several questionable, if not dubious decisions by the DOTC have conspired together that led to the sacking of de Jesus by the President. Chief among them were the Radar Control System, MRT maintenance and privatization, Stradcom’s interconnectivity agreement with LTO and its P1.2-billion claim against the government.

In fairness to the President, he tried to put a lid on the “firing” of de Jesus perhaps out of respect for the man who had served his mother, the late President Corazon Aquino. The Press Office wanted to announce the resignation that very Monday but PNoy gave specific orders to “hold the announcement.” He must have wanted to give de Jesus a graceful exit.

Before the announcement could be made on Tuesday, de Jesus asked the Press Office to hold it for another day. De Jesus’ resignation was leaked to the media on Wednesday but was denied by the Secretary. The denial was published Thursday in the Star.

And so it came to pass that it was a DOTC Undersecretary who made the announcement of de Jesus’ departure from the Cabinet effective end of the month.

Prior to the meeting of the President with de Jesus on Monday, PNoy reportedly made a long distance call to a member of his family who was in Paris at the time to break the news of his decision to let go of the DOTC Secretary. “Ping has to go” the President reportedly said over the phone.

Prior to the long distance call, de Jesus had no inkling that all the while the President had been gathering information from independent sources about the contracts entered into by the previous administration. It was during these consultations that PNoy came across the questionable transactions in the DOTC.

Immediately after getting the data from his sources, the President crosschecked and validated the information with an expert who confirmed the attendant anomalies involving the radar project. A series of consultations occurred with the resource person. An “aide memoir” was finally sent to the President for his study.

The P 7.3-billion radar project was awarded to Sumitomo-Thales consortium during the Arroyo administration. It was perfected during the early months of the Aquino administration. The first phase was for P 4.8 billion, the second, P 2.5 billion.

The bidding process was flawed. The award to Sumitomo-Thales was illegal according to the Commission on Audit. It objected to the award, noting that some years ago, when the Japanese-Australian consortium was still called CSF Thompson it abandoned a project, “Global Maritime Distress Signal System (GMDSS).” COA also slammed DOTC in a memorandum sent to the agency’s officials for “not disqualifying spurious bidders.”

In short, the bidding was rigged to favor Sumitomo-Thales. Despite the COA findings, de Jesus authorized the release of P58 million to the consortium representing 15 percent as mobilization fee. The P58-million mobilization fee was subsequently disallowed by COA.
Another contentious issue that unsettled the President was the privatization of the MRT.

PNoy and de Jesus have been at loggerheads over the details of the privatization. As opposed to the position of the President, the Secretary wanted to pay the winning bidder P15 billion over three years. Instead of a Private Public Partnership (PPP) arrangement, de Jesus favored awarding what he calls a “Service Contract.”

The President was against it. PNoy preferred an arrangement that is straightforward, very transparent, no-nonsense, and with no out-of-pocket expense for the government. He wanted the winning bidder to take over the operations and maintenance of the MRT at no cost to the government in exchange for an extension of the 25-year contract, depending on the amount of investments the private operator puts in the project.

LTO Chief Virginia Torres had nothing to do with the sacking of de Jesus by the President. If at all, Torres was only one of those who briefed the President on the real score involving the P 1.2 billion that Stradcom was trying hard to collect from the government, contradicting what Velasco earlier told PNoy. It was the LTO chief who refused to release the P 1.2-billion payment to Stradcom given what she described as an “anomalous contract.”

At one point, the President reportedly confronted Velasco and told him straight to his face, “You’re not telling me the whole story.” In effect, PNoy accused Velasco of lying to him.

On another issue, showing extreme displeasure, PNoy reportedly confronted de Jesus about why the MRT coaches malfunction very often and why despite his order, the coaches remain decrepit. The President must have been hurt by the incessant public criticisms over the frequent malfunctioning of the MRT coaches. He had expected the DOTC boys to solve the recurring problems in the MRT to spare him the negative publicity being generated by the incompetence of some government officials.

Three DOTC undersecretaries namely, Dante Velasco, Glicerio Sicat and Ruben Reinoso called a press conference on Friday to announce that they too were resigning their posts effective June 30 to “give the incoming Secretary a free hand.”

At the same time, they accused the President of extending passive support for DOTC’s programs. Reinoso also announced that he was going back to his old job at NEDA and Velasco to the Office of the Executive Secretary. Until that press conference, nobody knew Velasco was holding on to two positions on a concurrent capacity.

After putting the President in a bad light, these two now want to go back to their “old jobs.” What gall.